


The Spirit of Salem Manor

by lightsaroundyourvanity



Category: RWBY
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/F, Haunted Houses, Journalist Blake
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-06-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:28:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22377226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightsaroundyourvanity/pseuds/lightsaroundyourvanity
Summary: On the island of Patch, the long abandoned Salem Manor is the stuff of local haunted house legend. As children, Blake and Yang spent one terrifying night there. Many years later, they reluctantly return to claim a prize.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long
Comments: 92
Kudos: 362





	1. Chapter 1

On a dark October night, thunder crashes overhead, clouds crowd the sky, and the shards of moon that peek through are ghostly. In Yang Xiao Long’s living room, four girls scream in unison at the first crack of thunder.

“Weiss! Save me!” Ruby throws her arms around Weiss Schnee, who whips her long white braid away.

“Shut up! Don’t touch me!” she snaps – but Yang notices that Weiss clutches Ruby back, the absolute carnival ride of a twelve-year-old’s imagination churning out fear that makes her dig her nails in.

In the end, it’s Ruby who shoves Weiss away with a yelp. “You’re going to draw blood!”

Yang flicks a glance towards Ruby. There are little crescent moon marks etched into her forearm, but Weiss didn’t break the skin. Ruby is fine. Yang grins lazily. “You’re the one who wanted to come to the big kids sleepover.”

At ten, Ruby is only two years younger than the rest of the girls. But at that age, two years is a whole new arena. Ruby made the cut only because (and Yang was very clear about this earlier) Yang had vouched for her little sister. Oh, and because technically, it was her living room too, or whatever.

“Did... did anyone else see the lights flicker during that last one?” asks Blake. She sits on her sleeping bag, black and printed with grey fish, and hugs her knees.

“Oh, stop!” Weiss pleads. “You’re going to spook me out.”

“Old wiring, Weiss’s deepest fear,” Yang jokes. Ruby and Blake dissolve into giggles. Weiss looks put out for a moment, and then joins in.

It’s the kind of triumphant slumber party that comes out of perfect synchronicity: Yang and Ruby’s dad was out of town for the weekend, and Yang had talked him into letting them stay alone.

(“Please,” Yang begs. “Kristy Thomas from the Baby-Sitter’s Club watched her siblings alone when she was twelve.”

“Since when do you read those books?” Tai asks, scratching the back of his head.

“Blake does. She’s such a Dawn.” Yang rolls her eyes fondly, and then trains them back on Tai. “ _Well_?”)

So it was just the four of them: Yang, Ruby, Blake, and Weiss. And it was the Friday night before Halloween. And the snacks were on point, and the weather was moody and good, and they were half-heartedly watching The Craft as it played on the TV in the background, but mostly just talking, and talking, and talking. Yang is feeling very pleased with herself when all is said and done.

Yang leans back on her elbows, and her shoulder brushes Blake’s shin. Every hair on Yang’s arm stands up straight. Yang glances up through her eyelashes at Blake. Blake is still laughing, her chin tilted in, her cheeks pulled round in a smile. She’s... she’s something close to radiant.

Lately, when Yang looks at Blake, it feels different. It feels like a thousand tiny suns are exploding between the tines of her ribcage. Yang isn’t an idiot. She knows what this means – that she probably _likes_ Blake _._ That she definitely likes Blake. When Yang looks at Blake, her heart stutters.

Yang is starting to wrap her head around the social politics of dating at school, asking that cute girl in health class to hang out at the mall or going to the movies in “paired off” groups of six. But it never lasts more than a few weeks, and so here is where Yang is an idiot: How do you go after the girl you like when it would upset the entire social balance of your weekends? What do you do when you’re falling for your best friend?

Blake doesn’t like her (not like that) Yang is sure. Blake likes Sun Wukong. That’s what everyone in their class says, and when Yang asks her about it, Blake just shrugs and looks away, which Yang is sure means _yes._ So Yang sits next to Blake, on the bus and in class and when they eat, longs for Blake, and tries not to let it eat her alive. It’s a crush, Yang tells herself when she’s trying to fall asleep at night, golden hair splayed, pillow clutched in one fist. It will pass.

Blake catches Yang’s eye, and it sets her off into a new fit of giggles, and Yang grins. The world tilts back to manageable and Yang is laughing with her friend again, the ache of _like_ liking shoved away in a box that’s been tied shut with a bow.

“Ha ha, very funny,” Weiss says stiffly. “ _You_ all screamed, too.”

“Yeah, but that was like, fun screaming,” Yang says easily. “You’re the only one who was actually _scared._ ”

“I’m not scared!” Weiss protests.

“Cut her some slack,” Blake says. “If anyone here _definitely_ lives in a haunted house, it’s Weiss. She’s tougher than any of us.”

“Oh, good point,” says Yang. She points at Weiss, shoots a finger gun. “Your place is terrifying, Ice Queen.”

“Hey!”

Ruby is looking at Weiss with wide, round eyes. “Is your place really haunted?”

“What? No!” Weiss blows her bangs out of her eyes. “It’s just... old. And big. And cold.”

“Sounds haunted to me,” says Yang. She reaches over and grabs a fistful of popcorn from a bowl.

“Yeah, Weiss. You ever wake up in the night and feel a presence?” asks Blake.

Weiss looks troubled. Blake and Yang snicker. Yang throws a kernel of popcorn at Weiss, who bats it away, her expression sliding closer to annoyed.

“Well, if _my_ house is haunted, it has _nothing_ on Salem Manor,” Weiss says finally, a glint in her eye. Yang stops laughing. She and Ruby exchange a glance.

Blake raises an eyebrow. “Salem Manor?”

Because Blake and her family only moved to Patch two years ago. Blake didn’t grow up on the local legends, the myth of the head buried under the boardwalk, the lighthouse that shows ghostly silhouettes on blue moons. The legend of Salem Manor, the crumbling, ivy covered mansion at the far end of Yang’s street.

“They say a grand lady lived there years and years ago,” Weiss begins, a storyteller’s cast to her inflection. “There was a tragedy, and she never left the house again. She even died there.”

“And now her ghost haunts the property!” Ruby finishes, excited.

“It’s been empty as long as we’ve lived here. Nobody’s ever been able to settle in there,” Yang finishes solemnly. Then she cracks into a smile. “I can’t believe we never told you that one!”

But instead of looking petrified, Blake looks puzzled, her brows pulled together in a frown. “If nobody can live there,” she asks, “Why doesn’t the city just knock it down?”

“Landmark or something,” Yang shrugs.

“It’s one of _the_ oldest buildings on Patch,” Weiss clarifies. “That’s a lot of red tape to go through.”

“If it’s been left abandoned for decades, it’s probably only haunted by old insulation and rats,” Blake says pragmatically. “Only scary if you’re afraid of rats. And who’s afraid of rats?”

“Um, who’s _not_ afraid of rats?” asks Ruby. She glances around nervously and tucks her feet in, like she’s worried Blake’s blasé attitude might summon a rat into the room.

“Really.” Weiss looks unimpressed. “You wouldn’t be scared to be there at all?”

“I guess I’m just made of stronger stuff than you are, Schnee,” Blake says breezily.

Here’s the truth: Yang would rather die than set foot in Salem Manor. Just walking past the place gave her the creeps. But Blake’s confidence, Blake’s absolute cool, it rings out like a challenge. Yang wants Blake to think that she is absolutely cool, too, and maybe that’s why she pipes in with, “Yeah, Weiss. It’s just a house. What’s so scary about that?”

This is a mistake. Weiss’s glance darts to Yang and then sharpens, and Yang knows that she is remembering every time that Yang insisted they pedal their bikes as quickly as possible when they rounded the corner towards Salem Manor so that they can ‘outrun the ghosts’, and she’s silently letting Yang know that she’ll pay for throwing her under the bus.

“If it’s so _pedestrian,_ ” says Weiss, still glaring daggers at Yang, “Why don’t you two go spend the night? Right now.”

Yang gulps.

\--

Payback is a bitch, but it has nothing on Weiss Schnee.

This is what Yang is thinking as she forces herself up the walkway towards Salem Manor, Blake at her side. Weiss and Ruby had left them at the iron gate (because of course this horrorshow of a place had a freaking spooky iron gate) with Weiss leaving strict instructions to come back at sunrise... or when they were ready to give up.

Because after Weiss had issued the dare, Yang had frozen and seen Blake’s back stiffen, but both saw in the other the kind of stubborn wear on their souls that made it impossible to back down from a challenge. And Yang’s heart had sank as she realized this meant she was definitely about to spend the small hours of the night in a haunted (or at _least_ rat infested) house.

 _The things we do for cute girls with golden eyes_ , Yang thinks as they approach the door together. The things we do for girls who have wicked senses of humour, who are always reading books, whose smile is prettier than a flower unfurling towards the sun...

It’s a powerful thing, a knockout crush. Yang had almost forgotten to be unnerved for a minute. Then Blake leans forward and twists the doorknob. The heavy wooden door swings inward with a massive creak and a shower of rocky dust.

“The door isn’t even _locked_?” Blake asks incredulously. “It’s like they _want_ people to break in.”

“We’re doing them a favour,” Yang says, taking the first step over the threshold. She sees crumbling wallpaper, furniture covered by moth-eaten dropcloths. Everything mottled in cloudy silver moonlight. Her heart is pounding in her chest for a dozen different reasons. Blake follows Yang inside and shuts the door. The room is plunged into darkness, and Yang’s heart ricochets into her throat before she remembers she negotiated the right to a flashlight, which she now clicks on. The beam is watery, but grounding.

Beside Yang, Blake smirks. “Forgot you couldn’t see in the dark,” she teases.

“We can’t all be faunus superheroes,” Yang retorts. She waves the flashlight around, taking in the forgotten room. “S’not so bad,” Yang says, half to herself. “I thought there would be more rubble.”

“Me too,” Blake whispers.

“Why are you whispering?” asks Yang. “You’re not _nervous_ all of a sudden, are you?”

“What?” Blake’s voice rises sharply. “No! It’s just... well, what time is it, anyway?”

Yang checks her watch. The green digital square of it floats out in the gloom. “A little after two,” she says. “Four hours until sunrise.”

“Ugh.” Blake rolls her shoulders. “Maybe we can find somewhere to sleep.”

“You think you could _sleep_ here?!” Yang yelps. Blake just looks at her sidelong, rolls her eyes, and heads deeper into the house. Yang follows and tries to ignore the chill running up her spine.

Left of the grand entrance is a sort of sitting room, and Blake prowls it now, circles a chaise. She punches a cloth covered pillow and a cloud of dust puffs up. Blake coughs and waves it away. “Yeah,” she says, when her coughing subsides. “Unless...” Blake’s eyes flash gold in the dark. “Don’t you want to explore a bit first?”

How could she not? Yang was in a bona fide haunted house in the middle of the night with the coolest girl in school. She’s still shaking in her boots, but she pushes that aside. This is the stuff pop songs are made of, after all.

And the further into the house they go, the less scary it gets. Blake and Yang even come across a room littered with old beer cans and an overflowing ash tray, proof that the ghosts kept their distance enough for teenagers to feel comfortable partying there. They scramble up staircases and through bedrooms, until Yang starts to see the night as the adventure it is instead of a petrifying trial.

“It’s wild that so much stuff was just left here,” Blake comments, trailing her hand through the dust on a vanity mirror.

It is. It is wild. And it’s usually something that Yang would be ticking through in her mind, weighing the reasons nobody dared loot Salem Manor, but she’s having a hard time keeping up with anything other than the path Blake’s fingertips are making, by the way the occasional glint of stars gets tangled in her long dark hair.

“Yeah,” Yang agrees. She plops onto the edge of a bed. Dust billows around her, but Yang doesn’t feel anything around her move, so she figures she’s safe from rats.

Blake opens a drawer, and suddenly gasps, which sends Yang springing back to her feet, rushing to Blake’s side. “What is it?!” she asks. Yang crowds in close, trying to get a look over Blake’s shoulder.

Blake takes out an old ring, brassy and unassuming, and holds it up towards the flashlight’s beam. Yang feels herself deflate. “That’s it? That’s a piece of junk.”

“It’s a piece of history,” Blake corrects her. “This is so cool. I feel like Indiana Jones.”

Blake starts to slip on the ring, but Yang’s hand snaps out and grabs Blake’s wrist. “If you _were_ Indiana Jones, you’d know better than to put on strange jewelry in haunted mansions. That thing has curse written all over it.”

“Oh, please. You don’t really believe in curses, do you?” Before Yang can protest again, Blake slips the ring onto her finger.

And maybe it’s just a coincidence, but its right then that they hear the crying.

“Do you hear that?” Yang whispers.

For the first time, Blake starts to look nervous, blood starts to drain from her face. The longer they stand there, frozen, the harder it is to deny: Someone is crying in the belly of the house. Thin, keening sobs that cut through the glum air and set the back of Yang’s neck to a worried tingle.

“Maybe you should—”

“—I’m taking this thing off!” Blake says at the same time. She rips the ring from her finger and throws it back in the drawer.

The crying does not cease. Yang and Blake stare at each other, wide eyed, fear spilling onto both of their faces now.

“Maybe someone else snuck in?” Yang asks hopefully.

The worry eases from Blake’s features. “Of course. That must be it.” She takes a deep breath, and it sounds like relief, then glances towards the door. “We should investigate. Make sure they’re okay.”

“Okay...” Yang draws out the word, sucks in a breath. Blake is made of stronger stuff than she is if she thinks Yang is going anywhere _near_ those mysterious, muffled (absolutely haunted) cries.

Or maybe Blake just knows Yang better than she realized, because when she jerks her head towards the door and follows the noise, Yang is only half a step behind her. Because yes, genuine, cold terror is starting to creep in on Yang, but on the chance (the logical chance) that someone was hurt, or lost, or alone in this house, Yang needed to know that they were alright.

Carefully, quietly, Yang and Blake creep towards the noise. They sneak down the grand staircase, and the crying grows louder. They file one by one into the hall, and it grows louder still. Finally, Yang prowls into a long parlour room, Blake at her heels, certain that this is the source of the wails.

Abruptly, the noise stops.

“Where did she go?” Blake asks quietly, because it was a woman’s cries, they’re both sure of that now.

“I don’t know,” Yang replies. “Let’s look around. But be... be careful.”

Yang can sense nerves start to scatter over them both. This is spooky. This house is spooky. This whole freakin’ situation is spooky, but Yang is stubbornly determined to see it out now.

They each take a slow, careful turn of the room. There’s nothing there, not even a sofa, not even a hair. Not a solitary soul to be found. The only furnishings are ancient balls of dust and a long, dramatic gilt mirror against one wall. Yang watches Blake linger there, studying not her reflection, but the crazily angled room on its silver backed surface. Yang trots to Blake’s side. Their eyes meet in the mirror. It’s intimate, like a sideways universe where they are allowed to do things like this, and heat rushes up Yang’s neck to the tips of her ears. She is the first to look away.

“So, uh. It doesn’t look like there’s anyone here,” Yang says to her feet.

“No. It doesn’t.”

Yang’s glance sneaks back up to the mirror. When their eyes meet this time, Yang is braced, and expecting it really helps her enjoy the flow. Blake’s eyes flick from Yang’s eyes to her mouth and back again, and Yang _sees_ it, has watched enough teen dramas on the WB to know what that means. Her heart trembles.

As their eye contact lingers, as it grows more pointed, Blake’s lips start to curve into a tiny smile. Yang’s heart beats faster. She turns, just as she sees Blake start to turn, and Yang can see the future now, she’s almost, almost there: She’ll lean in and brush back Blake’s hair, Blake’s eyes will flutter closed, and then – fireworks. Yang is ready. She’s poised to make her move, to shoot her shot.

That’s when a force pounds its fists from inside the mirror and _howls._ Yang sees it out of the corner of her eye and reflected in Blake’s, the stringy grey corpse of a phantom trapped inside the mirror, her mouth gaping open; wide, unruly, unearthly. Yang hears Blake scream, or maybe she screams, or maybe they all scream, all three of them. Yang grabs Blake hard by the upper arm and wheels her into a closet on the opposite side of the room.

The door slams behind them.

It’s dark, except for the faint reflective glow of Yang’s hair, of Blake’s eyes.

“Holy shit!” Blake hisses. “Holy shit, holy shi—”

Yang presses her finger to Blake’s lips, and shakes her head slightly. Blake quiets abruptly.

“Do you hear that?” Yang whispers, voice barely over a breath.

They both strain to listen. And yes, there it is – the creak of footsteps. Blake lets out the tiniest whimper. Yang swallows hard. The footsteps draw closer, closer, closer... and then retreat, as though they’d been passed by. Yang waits for a long, tense moment after the last creak fades away.

“Okay,” Yang breathes. “I’m going to check that the coast is clear.”

“Yang, wait!” Blake grabs a fistful of Yang’s shirt and drags her back when Yang starts to dart away.

“Blake...”

“I know, I know.” Blake draws in a breath. “I’m all talk. I’m being a baby. Tell Weiss whatever you want. But just... just give me a minute.”

“No, Blake. Your hand.” Yang’s glance flits towards Blake’s ring finger, and Blake follows her look.

Burned around Blake’s finger is the perfect imprint of an old, brassy ring.

“What the fu—” Blake rubs furiously at the skin of her finger, but the mark doesn’t budge. She rubs harder, panic starting to rise, scrubs until the skin around the mark turns an angry pink.

“Hey,” Yang catches Blake’s hands between her own. “Don’t freak out. It’s probably just a... an allergic reaction or something.

“Yeah.” Blake still looks haunted, afraid. “Yeah. You’re probably right.”

“Do you want to go back?” Yang whispers.

“After we made it this far?” Blake looks personally affronted. “No way.”

“Are you sure?”

“If _you_ want to go back—”

“No!” Yang’s voice rises. She hushes herself. “No way.” She was _not_ going to be the first one to give in.

There’s a stubborn set to Blake’s jaw, despite the tremble in her lip. She wasn’t going to be the first to crack, either. Yang swells with admiration. She’s met her match with Blake Belladonna.

Blake reaches for the doorknob. “Come on,” she says. “It’s probably safe to leave now.”

Blake twists the handle and pulls, but the door pulls back and slams itself shut. Blake yelps and lets go of the doorknob like it’s burned her. She falls back against Yang, who steadies her by the shoulders. Blake turns in Yang’s arms, and her eyes are huge with fear.

“Or we could just stay here until dawn.” Blake crumbles a little and slumps. She crowds in and tucks her head under Yang’s chin. “Or we could just stay here.”

Yang curls her arms around Blake and they sink to the floor together. Outside the closet, she can still hear rustling, still feel the sick weight of a lunatic presence, and now that Yang doesn’t have to push forward anymore, she can privately admit that she is terrified.

They don’t move again until dawn.

Afterwards, Yang and Blake are both met with a kind of awe, from Ruby and Weiss, and then others as the story filtered out into the neighbourhood and spilled over into school. Yang basks in it, her chest puffed out and a new toss to her hair.

“Sure we saw ghosts,” Yang brags, all new bravado, “But like the song says – I ain’t afraid of no ghosts. Right, Blake?”

Blake just smiles, wan and newly withdrawn.

She changes after that night, so slowly that Yang doesn’t notice at first, so abruptly that Yang worries that it’s because of her, the almost-kisses that brushed lips and cheeks while they prowled Salem Manor. This makes jagged and unwelcome shame knot in Yang’s stomach, so she lets Blake keep her distance, spend her lunch hours in the library, spend less and less time playing outside. They fade from friends to acquaintances to classmates, and at the end of the year when the Belladonnas move away again, Blake and Yang exchange a half-hearted promise of phone calls. No tears, no forwarding address.

It would be a very long time before they saw each other again.

\--

Fifteen years later, Blake Belladonna sits in a pitch meeting at work and wills herself not to fall asleep. It’s a losing battle. Robyn Hill, the editor-in-chief of the Vale Spectator and Blake’s boss, is smart as a whip, but her voice is soothing and melodious, and it has a lullaby effect on Blake. Her eyes drift shut.

A sharp, pinching pain jolts her awake. Blake shoots upright in her seat and sees Coco Adel leaning away from her out of the corner of her eye. Coco ran the fashion and lifestyle section of the Spectator. She and Blake are friendly, but Blake has always suspected that Coco judges her laissez faire attitude the tiniest bit. Coco is very focused and driven, sometimes to the expense of those around her. Blake is... not. She’s sure that the look behind Coco’s dramatic dark sunglasses right now is admonishing.

“Blake! Nice to see we’ve finally caught your interest.”

Blake’s head swivels towards the sound of Robyn’s voice. “Uhhh...”

Robyn plows forward. “You’re exactly who I wanted to talk to about this next assignment. You’re into all that witchy spooky crap, right?”

“Uh...” Blake is starting to wonder if she’s forgotten how to speak altogether. She scrambles for something to say. “Yeah, I guess I like that... spooky crap.”

Robyn’s not _wrong_ exactly. Blake has grown into the kind of girl who wears smudged eyeliner and posts tarot cards on Instagram. She has four crystals on her desk; six open tabs about folklore, ghosts, and legends. It’s more than postmodern Wicca chic, Blake wants to protest, but she doesn’t know how to begin to explain it. Absently, she rubs at the faint burn that circles her ring finger.

“Excellent. Here’s kind of a weird one. It’s human interest, but it’s getting a lot of press online, so I thought we should jump on it right away. You ever been to a place called Patch?”

Blake freezes. Because of course she knows where Robyn is going with this. How could she not? Blake still gets shivers when she thinks about Salem Manor, but with the kind of internet research she does, she’d have to be asking Jeeves to not see the headlines splashed around these days:

_Remnant’s most haunted house! You won’t believe what people are saying!_

_On the Island of Patch, If You Spend One Night at This Mansion, You’ll Earn a Fortune. Too Bad Nobody Has the Courage to Try._

_Haunted House Offers Bounty for One Night Stay._

It’s just that Blake had never expected the story to filter into _her_ news. She wrote real news. Cool alt magazine news. _Print_ news, at the very least. “I, uh,” Blake says carefully, “I actually used to live on Patch. When I was a kid.”

Robyn lights up, purple eyes sparkling with that fire she gets when she spots a _really great lead._ Blake cringes away, but she can’t really blame her. “Really?” Robyn asks, “Have you ever heard of this Salem Manor place?”

“Of course,” Blake says coolly. “It’s a local legend. Everybody knew it.”

Internally, Blake churns. The haruspex has spread her entrails out before her: Blake knows where this is going. Still, her thoughts wash over with cold, stunned dread when Robyn brightly chirps, “Great! So you know the area. I want to send a reporter in. Someone who can spend the night.”

 _No._ Blake gulps. The muscles in her jaw tense, like they’re stuck on the taffy of words. The muscles in her thighs tense, like at any moment, she might spring up and away, away. _No._

Blake won’t go back there. She can’t. Salem Manor is a dim middle school nightmare, clotted with fear, tangled with emotions. Blake can still remember the way that Yang shrugged the night off, and she’s baffled: Hadn’t she felt the uncanny bolt through her the way Blake had? Didn’t she still wear its soot under her nails? Maybe it was because Blake had put on the ring. She never should have put on the ring.

But Blake doesn’t say anything, and Robyn keeps talking. “It’s kind of a crazy story, isn’t it? Spend the night at an old house and the mayor will give you a hundred grand. What’s the motive? What’s the catch?”

“Hold up,” Coco interrupts. “I saw this story on reddit. The haunted house, yeah? That’s your _hometown_?”

Blake blushes. “I only lived there for a couple years—”

“But even that will make you perfect for our angle,” Robyn says, excited. “There’s a local woman from Patch who has been getting some heat, a sort of ‘hometown hero,’ people are calling her—”

Blake raises an eyebrow. “People?”

“Well. Me.” Robyn grins. “It’ got a nice ring it though, doesn’t it? Use that. Anyway, she grew up in the area, says she used to hang out at that house all the time and never got paid, so she’s happy to do it again now. A local mechanic named Yang Xiao Long. We want to send you in with her, see if the two of you can hash out a night in Remnant’s most haunted house.”

The longer Robyn goes on, the more deafening the rushing in Blake’s ears becomes. Of course it would be Yang. Of course it would be Yang. There is no way that she can take this assignment.

“I don’t think I can go out of town,” says Blake. “I’ve got a cat—”

Even Blake can hear how flimsy it sounds, and Robyn has a gift for carving her way through lies and bullshit. Robyn leans forward in her chair and fixes Blake with a stern look. “Board it. If you leave tonight, we might be able to actually scoop having somebody on the scene.”

Blake sighs. Some battles you can tell are lost before they begin. “Let me make a few calls,” she says glumly.

Robyn, satisfied, nods. The meeting continues, but Blake glazes over. This time, she feels less bad about it. She’s got a whole new can of worms on her mind.

Salem Manor. A familiarity, a sense of knowing, tugs at Blake. Some lowered platform in her soul had always known she’d go back one day, the part of her that likes closure, the part of her that always needed to finish a book. And yet the rest of her had hoped...

Blake doesn’t want to go back. And to go back in with _Yang,_ after so many years, let alone _see_ her... Blake doesn’t know how to process this right now.

She coasts through the rest of the meeting in a fog, and when it breaks up, she drifts towards the door, down the hall, thinking to go to the kitchen and make a cup of tea. Halfway there, she realizes that Coco is trailing her.

“You need something?” asks Blake.

Coco’s brow creases. She takes off her sunglasses, and the rare flash of her warm brown eyes are sympathetic. “Is everything okay? You seemed kind of spaced out in that meeting. More than usual, I mean.”

“I am not _spaced out,_ ” Blake says irritably.

“Right, sure. Pensive, or whatever.”

“Have you got something to say?” Blake asks sharply. Harsher than she needs to be, but she intends it.

Coco isn’t so easily ruffled. “I think I already did,” she points out.

This catches Blake’s breath. She sighs. A bit of the fight drains out of her. “I’m sorry,” she says, halfway to a mumble. “I just... never thought I’d go back there.”

“Not one of the cool kids, huh?” Coco grins. “Can’t relate.”

It draws a smile out of Blake. “Shut up. I’ll have you know I was _extremely_ cool.”

“You’re full of it. Nobody who was a queen bee in middle school grows up as hot as you.”

Now Blake is really laughing. Her journey to Patch still lingers on the edges of her mind, but Coco is drawing her back to the present, to solid ground. Coco is good at that, at making her friends feel steadier with confidence and a smile. It bolsters Blake to admit what she says next.

“I actually broke into that house once when I was a kid. With a friend.” _Yang,_ Blake’s heart thrums silently, but she doesn’t know how to tell this to Coco without making a scene. “It was sort of a fucked up night.”

Coco raises her eyebrows. “No shit.”

“Yeah.” Blake lets out a breath. “To be honest... that place scared the crap out of me. I don’t know if this makes me the worst reporter for the job, or the best.”

“Are you kidding?” asks Coco. “When has juicy context hurt any of us?”

That, Blake has to admit, is a good point. It doesn’t quell the fear in her heart, but it does make her start seeing things from different angles. Her nightmares purged and trip down memory lane. A clipping worth bragging about taped to the wall.

What could possibly go wrong?


	2. Chapter 2

Blake is resigned, but Blake is still nervous. She’s nervous as she’s sent home to pack, as she hands her keys over to Coco so that she’ll feed her cat, as she mindlessly scrolls Twitter while in the back of an Uber to the airport. She’s nervous even in the soothing, liminal space of the airport terminal, and when she’s slowly shuffling onto the dinky tin can airplane. The flight is just over an hour, but Blake is nervous on that, too. She orders a vodka cranberry and downs it in two swallows.

“You better watch it,” the redheaded man across the aisle comments, smarmy and solicitous. “You wouldn’t want to lose your senses this high in the air.”

Blake rolls her eyes and turns definitively away from him. She’d brought a black silk sleeping mask, and she slips it over her eyes.

She’s never returned to Patch, never wanted to, thought about it many times. It’s nearly hazy in her memory, the buttery sunlight, the diffusive fog of childhood. Somewhere, woven around that – is Yang. They haven’t spoken in years, but knowledge of your middle school friends is ubiquitous in the social media era, so Blake knows that she never left Patch. What she’s done, who she’s become is a mystery – but the wide, sunny smile that graces her stories and selfies? That hasn’t changed at all. _A local mechanic,_ Robyn had said. The idea makes Blake smile. Yang had always liked to work with her hands, to get down in the dirt.

Blake gets into town late enough that she heads straight to her hotel to check in, and the uniformity of a chain hotel’s double room – clean, beige lines; crisp, white sheets – floods her with gratitude. Despite her earlier, half-hearted protests to Robyn, Blake travels often for work. The static walls of a mid-priced business hotel are a homecoming of their own.

It’s too late to order room service, and she’s too keyed up to sleep, so Blake flops onto her bed, shoes still laced and tied, and swipes restlessly through her scroll. Robyn had sent an email out while she was in transit – Blake has a meeting the next morning with the mayor of Patch, who holds the trust for Salem Manor. Blake highlights the CC’d email with her thumb; _j.ironwood@patch.gov_ _._ She shoots off a quick reply, stares blankly at her scroll for a long beat, and then throws it aside.

Tomorrow, Blake will make plans to willingly return to that old haunted mansion and spend the night. The years have not dulled her fear of the uncanny – if anything, they’ve tempered them. She _wishes_ she was still the kind of girl who laughed at the idea of ghosts. And here she is, formalizing plans to walk into the open mouth of the first one she’d ever known.

It was going to be a very long night.

Somewhere on this island was Yang. Did she still think about that night? Was it harder, living in the shadow of Salem Manor, or was she numbed to it, after all these years? Unbidden, Blake is flooded with a new wave of memories: The fine golden down on Yang’s cheek, her sharp and wanting gaze. Their breaths, mingled in a tiny closet, the goosebumps that prickled Blake’s arms. They’d been searching for more than just spectres, the two of them, that night. What they’d found had been shoved back just as quickly, sunk into a murky pond, buried underneath the silt of time. Blake tries not to think about it too often. It’s been so many years, after all.

She’s thinking about it now. Blake’s fingers twitch towards her scroll, spurred to open Instagram and run through the feeds, conduct a haunting of her own. She clenches her hands into fists instead. It’s late. She won’t be the girl who is late for her meeting first thing in the morning because she was up until dawn internet stalking her middle school crush – no matter how close old memories are here on Patch, no matter how loose the thread Yang left in her heart.

Instead, fitfully, Blake sleeps.

She oversleeps anyway. The next morning is a jumble of rushed routine: Shower, root for clothes, brew a paper cup of tea, bolt out the door. Blake barely has time to be nauseous.

There are no ride shares on Patch, no Uber, no Lyft, but it’s a small island, and Blake is able to walk to city hall. The heels of her boots click on the sidewalk and mark her brisk pace. When she hurries up the stairs, hot tea sloshes over the lip of the cup she holds. It splashes her wrist, and she hisses through her teeth and struggles with the heavy front doors of the old government building.

“Good of you to come in first thing,” Mayor Ironwood comments a few minutes later, when Blake is settled in a seat before his desk.

Blake smiles slightly. She sips her tea, sizing Ironwood up. Is he being facetious? She can’t tell. He seems friendly enough, with his neatly clipped beard and fine suit, but then, he is a politician. She decides to take him at his word anyway. “Not at all.” Blake sets her cup down on the edge of Ironwood’s desk and flips open a notebook. “Thanks for entertaining this. So, you issued this challenge. Isn’t that a little controversial, for elected official at your position?”

If Ironwood is flustered by the speed which with Blake dives into things, he doesn’t show it, and she likes him better for it. He sits back in his chair and looks Blake over. “Not at all. I’m related to the family – very, very distantly. It’s been in my name all my life.” A smile tugs at his lips, halfway conspiratorial, hovering somewhere over self-deprecating. “My position... _has_ helped me cut through some of the red tape fending off outside parties recently,” he admits.

_Other parties._ Blake scratches the note down on her pad. “But why make it at all?” she leads. “What do you gain from any of this? Especially at such a high price?”

Ironwood shifts awkwardly. “You’re asking if I have an angle.”

“I’m just asking questions.” Blake breathes, tries to inflect some of Robyn’s soothing charm into her voice.

Ironwood steeples his fingertips. _Alright, I’ll bite,_ his posture seems to say. “I mentioned other outside parties. A corporation called Cinnamon Holdings is interested in the property, and they’re trying to exploit a loophole. They claim that since the house has been uninhabitable for close to eighty years, it can be condemned and torn. With or without my consent. But if someone were to go on record spending the night there...”

“...You could use that to keep the place standing,” Blake murmurs, pen scribbling.

“Exactly.” 

“But why?” Blake clicks the pen shut and looks up, fixes her gaze square on Ironwood’s. “Why not just sell?”

“I... I suppose I feel I have a duty to protect the place.” Ironwood shrugs ruefully. “It is in my name, after all.”

“Why not stay yourself, then?” Blake presses, teasing to the heart of the matter.

“I...” Again, Ironwood trails off. He stills, and something static changes in the air. Blake feels the hairs on the back of her neck start to prickle. A cold, unreadable look washes over Ironwood’s features, and he flexes his hands, a nervous, unconscious gesture.

_Because he’s afraid,_ Blake realizes. Because Ironwood knew exactly what happened behind the doors of Salem Manor when they shut with a heavy thud. He knew, and he wasn’t going anywhere near it – but he had no problems sending in Yang. Blake turns this knowledge over in her mouth, and it tastes sour. Ironwood seemed open, transparent, and friendly, but Blake can’t stop thinking about how he’s throwing money at his own fear, throwing smaller bodies into the crosshairs of lingering horrors. She taps the tip of her pen against her notebook, trying to form a question that’s professional, that’s neutral, that’s something other than judgmental and bitter.

“Well, well, well. What do we have here?” An unfamiliar voice floats in from the doorway.

Blake swivels in her chair and takes in two newcomers: Both women, one small, the other towering over her in a pair of deadly looking heels. The smaller woman looks like she walked out of a comic book – pink and brown dyed hair, sharp eyes and a smirk. The tall one burns like gunsmoke and coal; dark hair cropped short, an impeccably tailored black-and-gold suit.

Ironwood’s jaw tenses. “Cinder.”

“Hello James,” says the dark-haired woman, the one who had spoken. “You’re not meeting press without me, are you?”

“I didn’t know I needed to ask permission,” Ironwood replies. His words are stiff with barely veiled dislike.

“When it comes to my interests, you _always_ need permission,” Cinder purrs. “You know how much Neo _hates_ to have the rug pulled out from under her.”

Beside Cinder, Neo nods impishly and cocks her head. Blake wonders if she actually cares, or if she’s just playing the part. She supposes it doesn’t matter.

“Cinnamon Holdings, I presume?” Blake sits with her pen poised, ready to continue taking notes.

Cinder’s eyes slide towards Blake; cool, appraising, bored. “You’ll have to ask our lawyers.”

“For the name of your company?” Blake asks, needling. “What have you got to hide?”

“What have you got to say?” Cinder shoots back. She looks at Ironwood again and narrows her eyes. “You’re really scraping the barrel with this one, aren’t you?” When Ironwood only shrugs, Cinder keeps talking: “You’re delusional. If you haven’t found anyone else to spend the night at Salem Manor _yet_ , what makes you think some brassy townie and a pithy Lois Lane wannabe can pull it off?”

“What makes you so nervous, if you’re sure that we can’t?” Blake asks. The mask of the interviewer drops away from her face, and she is only a woman, blazing with irritation. “What makes you think that it’s your _right_ to the property?”

“Oh, and she’s _feisty,_ too.” Cinder scowls, her eyes still on Ironwood. At her elbow, Neo rolls her eyes. “It still won’t work,” Cinder continues. “Kiss the old dump goodbye, James. It will be ours by the end of the month.”

Ironwood fixes Cinder with a long, cold look. “We’ll see.” He leans forward and pushes a button of the intercom. “Miss Schnee? We’re wrapping up here.”

“Don’t bother,” Cinder sniffs, haughty. “We’ll see ourselves out.”

With that, Cinder turns and glides out of the room. Neo follows, silent and smug, bouncing on the balls of her feet. And as the door shuts behind them, Blake catches the barest glimpse of a long, white braid.

“ _That_ is what we are dealing with.” says Ironwood. He massages his temples and looks suddenly very tired – Blake picks out worn out threads of silver in his hair that she had not noticed before. “Red tape and succubi.”

Blake snorts and reminds herself not to write that down, though it is a good line. Her mind wanders, following that braid, following a memory, and before she knows it, she is on her feet.

“I’m sure her bark is worse than her bite,” Blake says absently. Curiosity pivots her attention towards the door. Miss _Schnee?_

Ironwood sighs. “I wish that I could agree. It is my hope that by this time next week... it will no longer be an issue.” He smiles, a slight, crooked quirk of the lips. “Good luck.”

Blake takes the light dismissal at face value, a new mystery on her mind. She quickly gathers her things and heads out the door, just in time to see the twist of white hair, the royal blue sweater set, the petite girl in buttoned white ankle boots, as she disappears around a corner and down the hall. Blake dashes after her.

“ _Weiss?!”_

Weiss Schnee stops in her tracks and turns around. Her face has grown older, her hair longer – but the icy blue eyes, the irritated crease to her brow, that diminutive, demanding figure – Blake feels punched in the gut. She’s twelve years old all over again, copying Weiss’s algebra homework before first period while Weiss rolls her eyes.

Weiss doesn’t look happy to see her – if anything, she looks annoyed. But ancient experience taught Blake long ago that this is how Weiss shows affection – so she offers up a tentative smile. “Wow. It really is you. What are you _doing_ here?”

Weiss arches one perfect brow. “I work here. Did you need something?”

“I—” Blake clears her throat. “It’s me. Blake Belladonna? From middle school?”

“Yes. I know. You were on Mayor Ironwood’s calendar this morning.”

Blake gets the sick feeling that she is in trouble, but she hasn’t got the slightest clue what for. “Listen. I know it’s been a minute—”

“It’s been fifteen _years,_ Blake.” Weiss lifts her chin defiantly, daring Blake to deny it.

Blake sighs. She nervously runs her fingers through her hair. “So it’s all water under the bridge, then?” she asks hopefully.

Weiss scowls. “Have you told Yang that you’re in town yet?”

“I was going to call her after my meeting with Ironwood.”

“You should have called her _before,”_ Weiss snaps. “You should have called her as soon as you learned that she was your _assignment._ ”

Blake winces. The years and years and years sit on the tip of her tongue and beg to be used as a shield. What does she owe any of them, really? Weiss, Yang, Ruby – they’d been a sliver of time a decade and a half ago.

And yet – even as Blake’s hackles rise, it’s riddled with shame. She knows it’s so much more than that. The friendships she had made on Patch carved deeper than any she’d made in the years that followed. Her time on the island had been carved into her soul, not just out of terror, but out of love. And Yang...

Blake shuts her eyes briefly and breathes out a shudder. “You’re right,” she admits. “I know. I just...”

Weiss’s glare narrows to a pinpoint of disgust. “You don’t have her number, do you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Oh, for the love of...” Weiss holds out her hand, demanding. “You’re a pretty shitty journalist, Blake. Give me your scroll.”

Startled, Blake passes it over, and Weiss taps the number in. Blake takes the moment to study Weiss thoughtfully. They had spoken over the years, once or twice, nostalgic late-night DM slides on Facebook and later Instagram, but the momentum had always drifted away by morning, motes of dust lost in in watery beams of sunlight.

From the angry way Weiss jumped to her defense, Blake thinks that she must still be close with Yang.

Blake wonders what Yang is doing right now.

Blake wonders if Yang thinks about her as much as she thinks about Yang.

Blake wonders which ghost frightens her more right now.

Weiss hands her back her scroll.

“Thanks,” Blake says again, pocketing it. “And um, Weiss?”

“Yeah?”

“It really is good to see you.”

Weiss still looks pissed, but there’s a tiny, tiny hint of a smile on her lips when she turns away.

\--

Back in her room, Blake hunches over the desk and scrawls notes onto hotel stationary. In all the emotional turmoil – Weiss, Cinder, Ironwood, her own crawling fear of Salem Manor, the bright spectre of Yang – she’s nearly forgotten that she has an _article_ to put together at the end of this. She compiles her notes from the meeting with Ironwood, pieces them together alongside her own point of view and potential loglines.

Eventually, there’s no getting around it: She is going to have to call Yang.

Weiss had been right on the money when she’d called Blake a shitty journalist earlier. She _had_ been a shitty journalist. What kind of green reporter doesn’t get the contact information for her lead interview before she leaves town? Blake is surprised she hadn’t gotten an email from Robyn chewing her out for it already.

But then again – this was _Yang._

Blake picks up her scroll and balances it on her palm. She feels strung taut, exhilaration and nerves, just at the _idea_ of calling Yang. Her feelings are so much stronger than they should have any right or reason to be anymore. There’s such a pull even at the _potential_ of Yang that Blake feels embarrassed by it; the strength of the longing that she’s frantic to batten down.

She can’t let this get to her. This is _work._ (This is Yang). This is _ancient history._ (This is Yang). This is stupid. (This is...)

Blake hits dial and puts her scroll to her ear.

Yang answers on the third ring. “This is Yang,” she says, out of breath, like maybe she’d just been working – Blake can picture her, in grease splattered coveralls sprawled out underneath some old junker – and her voice is older, deeper, but it’s still _Yang._ There’s a tenor to it that floods Blake with rushing memory, that feels as true and familiar as if they’d been walking to class together only a few weeks ago, and not a hundred years.

“Hi,” Blake croaks. “It’s—”

“ _Blake_?”

Blake swallows hard. “Yeah. Hi.”

On the other end of the line, Yang lets out a long breath. “Hey. Wow. I was wondering when you would call.”

“What?! Why?”

“Um... the article?” Blake can picture the look Yang would be giving her if she in the room: _Hello, earth to Belladonna?_ “When I heard I was being covered by a reporter from Vale named _Blake Belladonna,_ I sort of put two and two together.”

“Oh. Right.” Blake feels suddenly stupid; clumsy and awkward. “Well, um. You guessed right. That’s me!”

An endless, agonizing silence stretches between then. Blake marinates in it, is about to say something pointless just to fill it – but Yang bites first.

“This is a little weird, right?” Yang asks.

Blake laughs. “No kidding. I’m surprised you’re not... you’re not mad at me at all?”

“Nah.” Blake can practically _hear_ Yang’s shrug. “Why would I be?”

“I saw Weiss earlier.” Blake hesitates, and then plows forward: “She was pretty angry.”

“Weiss is just protective of me,” Yang says breezily. “You know how best friends are.”

Blake feels her heart sink. _Best friends._ That could have been her. That was her, once upon a time.

“I mean,” Yang continues, a new, tense note to her tone, “Okay, alright, maybe I was a little annoyed at first that I had to hear through _Cinder Fall_ that a reporter would be following me into the house and not, say, _you,_ but—"

“ _Cinder Fall_ broke the story to you?” Blake asks, astonishment cutting through the surge of nostalgia. “ _Why_?”

Yang snorts. “Who knows. She hates that I’ve taken on this haunted house challenge though.”

“ _I_ hate that you’ve taken it on,” Blake blurts. “Why the fuck would you ever want to go back in there?”

“Um, a hundred grand?”

“But Yang,” Blake feels her grip on the scroll tighten, her palms slicken with sweat. “After what happened to us—”

“We don’t really know what happened to us,” Yang retorts harshly. “We were just kids. We probably imagined half of it.”

Blake rubs the thumb of her free hand over her ring finger. “We didn’t imagine shit.” 

“Well. You’re the one who signed up to follow me in.”

“Because it’s my _job,_ ” Blake snaps. “You think I picked this assignment?”

“Gee, thanks,” Yang dryly replies.

“That’s not what I meant. You know that’s not how I meant it.”

“Do I?” asks Yang. “I haven’t seen you in a pretty long time. I don’t know anything about you anymore, Blake.”

Blake feels this _whoosh_ through her. Yang is absolutely right: They don’t know each other anymore. Blake is pining for a fading afterimage. And it’s her fault. Not for her family moving away of course, but – she had pulled away from everyone after that night. Blake knows this.

“You _are_ mad at me,” she says softly.

“I’m not—” Yang makes a strangled, frustrated noise. “I don’t know, Blake. It’s all really complicated, you know? And for you to come back under _these_ circumstances, it’s just...”

“...Weird,” Blake finishes.

“ _Super_ weird.”

Blake smiles. Something easy clicks into place for a moment. She feels warm and at ease. She feels like she _gets_ Yang again, just for a second.

“So we’ll let it be weird then,” Blake says in a lighter tone. “After all, it’s just a story...”

“What?!” Storm clouds have returned to Yang’s voice. “Is that what you think?”

“It... no?” Blake asks tentatively.

“Huh.” Yang doesn’t sound convinced. “Well, don’t worry Miss Belladonna. You’ll get your _story._ I’m hitting Salem Manor tonight. Just before midnight.”

Before Blake can say another word, Yang hangs up.

\--

The rest of the evening is a healthy mix of stress and panic for Blake.

After Yang hangs up, she stares at her scroll in disbelief. What had she said? Where had she gone wrong? Was she walking into a total nightmare?

And then, immediately following, giggling despair: Hadn’t she known she would be walking into a nightmare this whole time? Like her literal, actual nightmares?

Blake paces the small breadth of her room, opens the mini fridge, closes it, gets everything she thinks she might need together, stuffs it all into a bag. She calls in with Robyn, who is brisk and offers nothing close to comfort. She thinks about calling Coco, but the thought of having to spill her tragic backstory makes her blanch.

The thought of returning to Salem Manor at all unsettled Blake to her core. The idea of doing it with Yang strikes a nerve that buzzes in a sick, intoxicating, unknowable sort of way. The idea of going in with a Yang who was _pissed_ at her? That wound together one too many elements for Blake to have the mental capacity to untangle it.

And yet, in a few hours, she would have to.

In a misguided effort to calm herself, Blake neatly lays out everything that she knows about Salem Manor in her head.

(When something has haunted you through your entire adolescence, it gets some hierarchy on the late night google search history, right below “earache will i die?”)

The mansion was built at the turn of the last century, by a rich family who had owned a good chunk of Patch in their heyday. Their name was all but forgotten, the thread chewed through by its last occupant, the Lady Salem. Orphaned young, she lived a lonely life in the manor, but was still seen around town often as a girl, laughing and sweet. In her late twenties, Salem abruptly changed. She withdrew from society. She became a recluse, a legend, a bogeyman. Trick or treaters started to avoid her block, and clouds seemed to hang even heavier over the roof of her ancestral home. Within ten years, Salem was dead – but her story lingered on. The mystery of her death was whispered through the town, and underneath that, there were those who swore that her presence still remained, angry and restless. No new tenets moved in, and in the years since being abandoned, rumours about hauntings have put it on the must-see lists of several ghost hunting blogs.

All of this could be found on its Wikipedia page. The rest of what Blake knew had taken a little bit more digging: that there were message boards speculating what could be haunting Salem Manor. That there were whole categories of ghosts who rose from distressing ends, and rose vengeful; the banshee, the yuan gui, la Llorona. Salem could be any of them, her faceless co-conspirators whispered.

(Blake had slunk down in her seat the first time she’d watched “Twilight” and seen Bella google the word “vampire.” It all cut a little close to home.)

Was there anything Blake knew that could help her navigating the night? Feeling silly, she stuffs her pockets with salt packets, like she’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer hunting a monster of the week. She wonders if she’s going overboard, but ultimately leaves them. Nobody has to know, after all.

Eventually, it’s half past eleven, and Blake makes the slow, uphill trudge to Salem Manor, the black hood of her sweatshirt up, her earbuds firmly in and blasting moody lyrics.

Blake hits the hillcrest that breaks over the front gate of the estate and sees: Yang. Her back is to Blake, but there’s no mistaking that glint of raw gold hair, the mass of it spiralling loose under a purple knit beanie. Her hands are stuffed into her jean pockets, and underneath a brown leather jacket, the line of her shoulders look tense. Blake notices a gleaming motorcycle leaning against the gate beside her.

Her breath catches. Yang looks so familiar that she wants to reach out and touch her; so distant that she might as well be made of spun sugar that dissolves under water drops. Blake takes a step forward. A twig snaps under the heavy sole of her boots.

Immediately, Yang whirls on her heel, hair whipping over her shoulder as she does. She spots Blake right away and her eyes widen. Her mouth opens, speechless. Even though she had been expecting Blake. Even though she had been waiting for her. Blake knows how she feels. She takes another step forward.

“Hey.”

Again, Yang’s manages to be different and knock Blake out with their history at the same time. And she’s – oh shit, she’s _hot._

It’s a chilly night, but underneath her leather jacket, Yang wears an open flannel and a tight white t-shirt that rides up on her hips. And Blake can see faint, defined line of her abs through it. She has to drag her eyes back up to Yang’s face, only to see that Yang is watching her with the same sort of open, curious wonder.

“Hi,” Blake says finally. Her breath puffs in the night air. “You’re not going to yell at me again, are you?”

Yang’s brow crinkles into a rueful smile, right before her eyes crinkle in a genuine laugh. “No. I don’t know,” she adds helplessly. “I go back and forth. But it’s... it’s really good to see you. You, um. You look good.”

Absurdly, Blake feels herself blush. There was a compliment in there – sort of – but it didn’t warrant the hot, fluttering feeling running through Blake right now. Yang was – is – electric. It’s undeniable, unexpected, and ridiculous.

“I can’t believe you’re going to go back in there by yourself, on _purpose,_ ” Blake blurts, for something to break the ice and because it’s the safest thought on the surface of her mind right now.

“I’m not going alone,” says Yang. “I’m going with you.”

This doesn’t help deescalate how flustered Blake is feeling, not even a little. “But if I wasn’t—”

“Then she’d have me!”

There’s a rustle in the brush, a blur of movement, and then – out pops Ruby Rose, as spunky and wide eyed as the last time Blake saw her. Her hair is cropped shorter, the tips dyed a fire engine red, and she’s wearing cherry coloured converse sneakers instead of footie pajamas or whatever – but Blake recognizes her right away.

Obviously, so does Yang. Her face twists with consternation. “ _Ruby._ Didn’t I tell you that you were absolutely _not_ coming into the haunted house with me?”

Ruby stands her ground. “Like I told you, this is my fight, too.”

“ _How?_ How is this your _fight_?”

“Because.” Ruby’s chin sets stubbornly, but her voice quavers. “You’re doing this _for_ me. Because you need to pay for _my_ school. And Cinder... what she said to you...”

“Never mind about Cinder. You should go home.” Yang’s expression softens, and Blake’s curiosity piques. Another connection between Cinder, Yang’s family, and Yang? 

“I’m not going anywhere!” Ruby’s voice turns up at the end, and she sounds younger than she is. Still, she wears the gravity of resolve.

Yang’s shoulder sag, resigned. “You could get hurt.”

“I won’t get hurt. I take care of myself. And Weiss will look out for me.”

“ _Weiss_ is here, too?”

A disgusted noise in the distance, and then another figure appears. It’s Weiss, wearing dark skinny jeans and a sweater set and a pristine pair of keds. She looks ready for Sunday brunch, not a casual midnight romp through a ruin.

Weiss cocks her head towards Ruby. “I can make my _own_ entrance, thank you very much.”

“But you were taking so long,” replies Ruby.

Weiss sighs again, and then looks pointedly at Yang. “Well, there you go. I’m coming, too.”

“ _No_. Come on. This isn’t Scooby Doo!” Yang is starting to look distraught.

“I know that.” Carefully, Weiss approaches Yang and loops her arm through hers. “I also know how much this place upset you, even when you tried to hide it. To say nothing of what it did to _you._ ” Weiss casts her last comment over her shoulder, towards Blake.

Ruby comes to Yang’s side and takes her other arm. “Sisters don’t leave each other,” she says firmly. “Family doesn’t leave. We’re all doing this together.”

Blake watches them, this little tableau of love, and feels forlorn, even if she’s not sure that she has any right to be. Ten minutes back in Yang’s orbit and the vision Blake is piecing together of Yang’s life makes the frayed parts of her soul ache. Yang has friends who will walk into hell for her. Once upon a time, so did Blake.

Weiss notices Blake first, standing on the outskirts of the group. “Oh, get in here,” she snaps. “It’s weird if you just trail behind us like a... like a...”

“Like a reporter?” Blake asks dryly.

“Yes, exactly!” Weiss refuses to confront the irony. She holds out her arm. “Just shut up and join us.”

Blake goes, gingerly takes Weiss’s arm. Weiss huffs, and Blake adjusts her careful hold.

Without thinking, Blake looks towards Yang one last time. Their eyes meet over Weiss’s head. Blake feels the charge, the wealth of memory, the dawning new heat. The promises snipped short, the questions piled just out of reach. Then Yang looks away, and Blake is left, longing into the chasm.

“Well,” Yang says, just short of cheerful, “No time like the present. Should we go in?”

A grumbling assent runs through the quartet. Blake’s chest constricts nervously. This was the end of the line: No more musing, no more research, no more dreamy hope. Her pockets are weighed down with salt that tastes like breadcrumbs.

They keep their arms linked like children in a folktale: Ruby, Weiss, Blake, and Yang. The gate swings inward, a rusty, endless creak, and four young women walk inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmm if you are keeping up, the chapter count has extended! i re-outlined and realized i had some THINGS to SAY. anyway, thanks for reading!! xo


	3. Chapter 3

_Patch. Four weeks earlier._

Despite the easy comparison to sunrise, Yang is not an early riser, and that is something she would like to make very clear. On the best of days, she’s like a teenager in a breakfast cereal commercial, struggling bleary-eyed to the kitchen, as lost and as blind as a newborn puppy. On the worst of days, it’s like her head has been filled with wet cement.

Today her head feels like it has been filled with wet cement. All Yang wants to do is slouch over her coffee and let it melt through her pores until she feels human again.

Instead, she’s got Ruby, bounding into the room faster than sound and trailing loose sections of the daily paper behind her. “Did you _see_ this?” Ruby shouts.

Yang slinks a little closer to her coffee and refrains from covering her ears. “Dude, I just woke up. I’m not even sure I’m seeing colour yet.”

Ruby looks exasperated: Her big, slow sister who can’t bother to keep up when she’s been awake for hours and on a tear. Ruby slaps the paper down onto the breakfast table. “ _This._ ” She says pointedly. “Check _this_ out.”

Yang squints down at the newspaper. Two words float out at her – _Salem Manor –_ and the jolt that pulses through Yang is better than caffeine ever was. She’s vividly, stressfully awake as she scans the article.

“They’re offering a _prize_?” Yang asks derisively. “To stay in that _dump_?”

“I know.” Ruby snatches the paper back and bounces into a chair across from Yang. “Too good to be true, right? I figure I better get a head start. All the other townies will be lined up to sign up by lunchtime.”

The implication of this dawns on Yang quickly, and she freezes. “ _You_ want to stay in that dump,” she clarifies.

Ruby shrugs. “Sure. Why not? The money’s real good. And you always said it wasn’t that scary, so I figured, going in as a grown woman—”

A loud rushing in Yang’s ears drowns Ruby out. Cold static runs through her. Yang has always, always played that night cool, at all costs, even at the cost of staying tight with Blake. She did it because to give the truth of Salem Manor an inch was to let it take the mile, claw its way into her skull and pull her under. Honestly, can you blame her? She’d seen a fucking ghost, and there had been nothing cool about it.

Usually, Yang buries this pretty deep – deep enough for her to be able to go about her day, work out in the morning, work at the garage in the afternoon, go to the Argo on weekends to have a drink and see her friends. Usually, Yang doesn’t let it bother her that _haunted_ is one of the words that climb the walls she’s built, like old mold, slimy and forgotten. Usually, Yang is able to live her life.

There are dreams, but there have always been dreams. There’s some fear Yang can’t always squish, like when she’s home alone after midnight and feels a cold prickle on the back of her neck. Cinematic horror renaissances have never done much for her. She speeds up when she’s taking her bike down certain streets. But day to day? Yang has done a pretty good job of stuffing _that_ box of memories far, far under the bed.

That is, until Ruby came into the kitchen with Yang’s most private nightmare emblazoned as the headline on the morning paper.

So maybe it’s a little dramatic when Yang clenches her fists and cuts Ruby off mid-ramble with a strangled, bellowed, _“No,_ ” but after knowing how many rapid, uncomfortable layers it took to get there, could anybody really blame her?

Still, Ruby doesn’t know any of this. She stares at Yang for a long, stunned beat and then asks, “What is the _matter_ with you?”

“Nothing.” Yang mutters. She stares into her coffee like it will help her divine a secret.

“Yang...” Ruby takes a quiet, hesitant breath. “I know you’ve always said nothing happened that night at Salem Manor, but sometimes when it comes up, it really seems like...” Ruby cuts off, and Yang isn’t sure if she’s losing her nerve or showing compassion. Maybe both. Ruby shrugs. “Do you ever feel like talking about it?”

Yang steels herself. She realigns. And then she plasters a big, fake grin to her face. “Nothing to talk about, squirt,” she says cheerfully. “It was a million years ago. Something to add colour to my tell-all.”

Yang stands up, busies herself with dumping her half-empty coffee out into the sink. She can feel Ruby staring at the back of her head with wide, wounded silver eyes, like an ultra-perceptive puppy dog. She sighs and grips the edge of the sink. She does not turn around. “You got something to say?”

“Fine. If you can’t give me a reason, then I’m going in.”

Yang spins on her heel and glares at Ruby. Ruby matches her glower for glower. There’s righteous stubbornness in it that makes Yang want to tear her hair out and yell, because she’s seen that look on Ruby’s face before, and she knows that it’s impossible to deal with. “What are you even trying to _prove_?” Yang asks helplessly.

“Nothing.” Ruby sets her jaw. “I don’t know. But if there’s something there, I want to see it myself. For you. And if there’s nothing... we could really use the money. I know paying for my school isn’t cheap for you.”

Yang cringes from the truth of this. The money _would_ be nice, but she can’t think about that right now, not when she’s trying to make a case in the opposite directly. “Did it ever occur to you that if there _was_ something there, my baby sister is the _last_ person I would want messing around with it?” Yang asks through gritted teeth.

“It actually did,” Ruby says sweetly. “I know you’re real noble like that.”

“ _Ruby!_ ”

“Yang, it’s literally middle school dare material. I think I’ll be fine. And that lawyer lady told me that even just being a _contender_ for this might get me attention. Maybe even from some very nice people who give scholarships?”

Yang scowls. “Stop making this about money. You know I’ll always find a way to find the money.” She freezes, eyes narrowing. “ _What_ lawyer lady?”

Ruby looks suddenly cagey. “Just someone who reached out to me,” she mumbles. “She tipped me off to the article coming today. Said it sounded like a good fit.”

“And that didn’t set off alarm bells?” There are five of them going off in Yang’s head now. Because what kind of respectable lawyer reaches out to a twenty-five year old grad student telling her she’d be a good fit to spend the night on a condemned property? The frantic, maternal spark in Yang that never seems to go away skitters towards kidnappings and faces on milk cartons, even though Ruby is long grown.

Ruby just shrinks further into herself. “Don’t worry about it,” she mumbles.

It doesn’t make Yang feel better, not even a little bit. Yang thinks that Ruby is hiding something from her, but she can only grasp at straws as to what it is. She keeps circling back to money, and it makes her chest feel tight. She knows that Ruby has always been self-conscious of Yang paying for degree, even though Yang has always felt it was worth it, even though Yang has always taken it as her responsibility without resentment.

(“Just take care of me when I’m old,” Yang jokes, when Ruby starts to get up in her head. It always makes Ruby smile.)

“How did this person even find you?” Yang asks gently. She wants to press, but she’s afraid of making Ruby withdraw.

“She emailed me,” Ruby replies warily. She sees right through Yang, but she’s giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Instead, Yang takes the bait. “Didn’t anybody ever tell you not to trust strangers on the internet?” she asks, voice rising a little too sharply for it to be a friendly rib.

Ruby huffs. “If you’re just going to be _impossible—_ ”

“You’re the one who is being impossible!”

Ruby’s mouth twists stubbornly. “You’re not in charge of me, Yang. I’m free to make my own decisions.”

“But this is a pointless one,” Yang insists. “And stupid. And dangerous.”

The tension that is starting to rise between them is heady and angry and real, too potent for a sensationalist newspaper headline, too sturdy for its foundation to be built on a daredevil challenge. There are things being left unsaid by them both. Yang grinds her teeth and feels like she’s slamming into a wall.

What she wants is to tell Ruby is that the only thing that scares her more than the idea of going back into Salem Manor is to let her little sister walk through the gates, but the words feel thick on her tongue. What she wants to ask Ruby is what she’s _hiding,_ what’s making her eyes dart away and her body language curl nervously, but the question sticks in her throat.

“It’s not pointless,” Ruby says, digging in. “Did you already forget? A hundred thousand lien!”

Something still doesn’t sit right with Yang. But she’s pulling loose the first threads of a plan. She crosses her arms over her chest and looks squarely at Ruby. “This is really just about money?”

“Yes.” Ruby’s gaze quickly slides away from Yang’s.

“Not like… curiosity, or to prove how cool and tough you are, or for some undisclosed reason you’re about to tell me right now?”

“Yang!”

“I’m just saying—”

“No.” Ruby’s words come out stiff. “It’s just about the money.”

 _Lie._ Yang forces herself not to zero in on it now though, because she’s got Ruby right where she wants her. Very casually, Yang pours herself a new cup of coffee, taking out a new mug, ignoring the barely used one that she’s left in the sink. “If that’s really the case, then we have another option.”

Ruby’s eyes narrow. “What?”

Yang sits down and takes a long slurp of coffee. Her fingertips are tingling but she plays the hand anyway.

“I’ll just have to go in myself.”

\--

Ruby doesn’t take it easy, but she does take it. Yang is right about calling her bluff: Whatever ulterior motives Ruby might have, she _still_ won’t tell Yang, though she grates obviously about having to stick to her line about the cash prize. For days, the sisters circle each other huffily, making pointed comments in the morning, banging pots louder than they need to, loud enough to jolt through the dread that has set up camp on Yang’s sternum. Yang takes on extra work at the garage. Ruby starts spending longer nights at the library. It gets to be so tense that Yang wonders why Ruby doesn’t just drop the issue altogether already; _Yang_ would certainly prefer it, to put an end to this torturous game of chicken and go back to ignoring her hometown’s local haunted house in peace.

But since despite it all, Ruby doesn’t back down, Yang begrudgingly goes through the motions of Patch’s hot new gambit for viral fame. She goes to the town hall, where she has to register and sign a release. She takes her time, puts it off for days, until she recognizes the gleam in Ruby’s eyes and knows that if she doesn’t hustle, Ruby will use it as an excuse to barrel in herself. When she finally drags her feet through the doors, she’s surprised not to see a crowd.

“There were a rush of volunteers at the beginning,” Mayor Ironwood’s clerk tells her, shadowed and dubious. “But nobody made it through the night. You sure you wanna do this?”

“Positive,” Yang says grimly. It’s too flat, too laced with resolve. Yang tosses her hair her hair to let the clerk know that she’s not taking this _seriously_ or anything. “It’s just a house, right? We used to sneak into that old place when I was in middle school.”

And then she leaves, hoping that her uneasy gut will buy her own showy confidence.

Still, it’s easy for Yang to drag in her heels. Would be daredevils have to sign up for a specific night to stay at Salem Manor, and the longer Yang waits it out and doesn’t insist on being first, the further down the schedule she can put herself, the better her chances of some other schmuck braving the night and winning a grand prize to put towards therapy.

Yang thinks it’s a good plan – but it blows up spectacularly in her face as she watches both townies and visitors alike drop out one by one, shaking and fleeing the district. Soon Yang doesn’t need a city clerk to fill her in on rumours: Everybody in town is talking about Salem Manor, about hauntings, about the impossible task.

And soon afterwards, everybody is talking about Yang.  
Rumours spread, the way they always do in small towns. Soon it’s common knowledge that Yang has signed up for the challenge. Soon other people in Patch, the ones she’d grown up with, the ones who had lived on the island all their lives, are reminding each other that it’s no surprise Yang would take on a ghost. This wasn’t her first rodeo, after all.

It should make Yang feel brave, the way that everybody is rooting for her. It only makes her feel small.

(It catapults her back to middle school, to telling the story of her and Blake’s night in Salem Manor in the school cafeteria while desperately ignoring the icy fear that still squirmed between the bones of her spine. Or even worse, while ignoring the unfathomable shame that stretched to greet her whenever she caught Blake’s eye.)

The one silver lining is that Ruby finally thaws one day. She flips like a switch, and at first Yang is suspicious, wondering what her little sister has up her sleeve, but eventually she just gives into it, basks in the sunny reception and in walking on eggshells being a thing of the past.

“There’s really nothing I can do now by being a grump, right?” Ruby finally admits with a shrug. “I mean, it’s all over town that it’s you now. People are writing about it online.”

“They _are_?” Yang perks up. “Where? Do I even wanna know.”

“Just…” Ruby flaps her hand. “You know. Online.”

Yang rolls her eyes. But she does register a google alert for herself.

Nearly two weeks to the day, Yang finds herself at work, frosty five o‘clock beers dancing in her head. It’s a rare afternoon where she’s _not_ fretting over the mess she’s coiled herself into. She spent the day replacing the transmission on an old junker, and the bolts from the bell housing on had been rusty enough that she’d felt her brain squeak as she negotiated them loose. It had been a tedious, frustrating job, but Yang was wrapping things up now, scooted far underneath the car on her back to replace the pipes and connectors.

She hears her visitors before she sees them, the tap-tap-tapping of stiletto heels on the concrete of the garage floor. Yang slides out from underneath the car. Upside down, she catches her first sight of them: Two women, one dressed in stilettoes and a suit, the other with dramatic pink and brown hair. Both of them are pretty. Both of them look mean.

“Can I help you?” Yang sits up and brushes her dirty bangs off her forehead.

“My name is Cinder Fall,” says the taller woman, the one in the heels. “And this is my associate Neopolitan. Perhaps you’ve heard of us from your sister Ruby.”

Ruby’s name puts Yang on edgy alert right away. She climbs to her feet and wipes her palms on the grease splattered legs of her coveralls. “Can’t say that I have.”

“Hmph. I didn’t think families like yours were in the habit of keeping secrets,” Cinder says slyly.

It’s a barb that finds its mark. Yang scowls and looks at the ground. “Are you looking for Ruby?” she asks stiffly. “Cause I gotta say, I’m not sold on pointing you her way if you are. First impressions and all that.”

“As it happens, I’m looking for you.”

Yang tilts her head to one side and looks Cinder over. She’s putting the pieces together now, the players, the timing. “You’re the lawyer lady,” she says finally.

“A little glib,” Cinder sniffs, “But I suppose.”

Yang’s attention drifts to Neopolitan next to Cinder. She hasn’t spoken yet, but her arms are crossed over her chest, and she’s smirking like she knows something the rest of them don’t. It rubs Yang the wrong way.

“Your assistant doesn’t have anything to say?” Yang asks pointedly.

Unexpectedly, Neopolitan’s face twists into sudden anger, and she starts towards Yang, but Cinder quickly holds her back.

“Neo prefers associate,” Cinder says.

“Riiight.” Yang glides her focus back to Cinder. So this was the woman who had Ruby barking up haunted trees and getting Yang caught in the crossfire. She’s already predisposed to dislike her, but something about Cinder’s smug demeanor, her perfect manicure and the expectant cock to her head irritates Yang even more. “Well. You found me,” Yang says, with none of her trademark brightness. “Congratulations. What do you want?”

“Isn’t it obvious? I want to talk to you about Salem Manor.”

It’s beyond obvious, but that doesn’t mean that Yang wants to give Cinder the satisfaction of hearing it. Instead, she hooks her thumbs into the pockets of her coveralls and looks thoughtful. “Old house on a dead-end road? Think I’ve heard of it.”

Neo rolls her eyes, _you’re not cute_ screaming from every twitch of her demeanor. Neo is wrong. Yang is _extremely_ cute; but it gives her a grim sort of satisfaction to be getting under either one of their skins.

Even as Yang is being difficult, a still and careful part of her Is waiting to see what Cinder has to say. To the point, she wants to know what the fuck this goth Elle Woods has to do with her sister. She’s squarely pinned the blame for Ruby’s interest in Salem Manor on Cinder Fall, and as soon as she gets the opportunity, she intends to ask why.

“Come on, Yang. I heard you were a straighter shooter than that.” Cinder’s voice is like silk. Yang hates it, hates the syrupy purr of it and the way the words hang like a proposition. She can see how easily see how she’d be successful in a courtroom, and she bets that she’s hated there too.

“Fine.” Yang’s gaze sharpens, her shoulders square. “You want straight shooting? Why are you so keen on my sister going into that house?”

Cinder and Neo exchange a quick look. Unexpectedly, Cinder bursts into laughter. Bitchy, mocking, superior laughter. Beside her, Neo’s shoulders shake in silent mirth.

“Is that what you think?” Cinder asks after the laughter subsides.

“It’s what I _know_ ,” Yang says stubbornly. “It’s what Ruby told me. She said you reached out to her.”

“Oh dear.” A new slyness enters Cinder’s smile. “It seems your family has been keeping secrets. And you two seemed so close.”

Neo pouts, a rude imitation of a sad clown whose only punchline is Yang.

Yang feels her blood boiling to a low roar, feels fire start to spark behind her eyes. “You better watch your mouth,” she snaps. “I don’t need a reason to kick your ass, but I’d love one.”

“Ooh, testy. Have I struck a nerve?”

Yang’s hands ball into fists. Her thoughts are hot and angry and racing. She wants to punch Cinder right in her stupid face. Her stance widens, like she might spring at the other woman despite herself.

The first dig of Yang’s heel and Neo moves in a flash. In one fluid motion she steps in front of Cinder protectively. Her chin tilts defiantly, and she looks directly at Yang. She shakes her head warningly.

Yang can feel it now, rolling off of Neo in waves: She’s dangerous. Yang glares at Cinder with new suspicion. “Your associate, huh?”

“Why don’t we avoid putting her particular skillset to the test,” Cinder says smoothly. “Nobody wants to cause a scene.”

Yang scowls, but she lets her stance loosen. Her shoulders relax. “You’re full of shit,” she grumbles. “Ruby and I don’t keep stuff like that from each other.”

“I really hate to be the bearer of bad news,” Cinder doesn’t sound like she feels that way even slightly, “But in this case you’re wrong. Ruby has been chasing after me for months. Talking about some research project she was doing on the property’s history. Insisting that she’d heard I knew something. If there’s anybody you should be asking about this… it’s _her._ ”

Yang feels her heart start to sink. There’s too much detail, too much smug assurance from Cinder. And there’s the fact that Ruby had been squirrelly lately, that she’d been so obviously keeping something from Yang.

“Why?” asks Yang. Her voice sounds hoarse. She swallows.

“That’s her business,” Cinder replies. “My business is helping her get what she wants. Starting now. Why are you taking her place, Yang? Do you really need your picture in the paper that badly?”

The sinking dismay in Yang’s heart turns sour and curdles like milk. She feels her hackles rise again, although a guarded glance towards Neo keeps her in check.

“That’s _my_ business,” Yang snaps.

“Think about Ruby,” Cinder presses, “Think about your sister. She’s looking for scholarships, isn’t she? That kind of exposure could get her grants. It could get her published.”

“Is that how academia works these days?” Yang asks archly.

“It does if you know the right people.”

“Sorry.” Yang shrugs. “I’m not interested in hearing it.”

“Then think about _yourself._ ” Cinder’s tone changes; it cuts like a knife. “I’ve heard your story, Yang. Sixteen people have fled Salem Manor in the last two weeks. Do you really think you have a chance after them, after what you endured as a child?”

“That’s _really_ my business,” says Yang.

“Just think about it.”

Yang thinks about it. Her nerve trembles and shakes. No, she doesn’t think she has a chance. She already feels like running away. But it’s miles better than the alternative of watching Ruby grapple with the kind of nightmares that she has.

“If you really know so much about me,” Yang says, forcing her words to come out evenly, “Then why the hell do you think I’d ever send my sister in there alone?”

“You haven’t heard? She won’t be alone.” Cinder speaks lightly, all innocence and smarm.

Yang knows she’s walking into some lawyer word trap, but her curiosity is piqued anyway. “What are you talking about?”

“A reporter is going in with you. All the way from Vale.” Cinder savours the words, the moment, and after five minutes with this woman, Yang knows that can’t mean anything good. “I think you might even know her. Does the name Blake Belladonna stir any memories?”

The rest of Yang’s heart drops.

This can’t be real. This is a nightmare. One of those carefully constructed psychological nightmares that picks at everything buried in a person’s subconscious. This can’t be real.

“Nice try,” says Yang, with more bravado than she feels. “Don’t you think if I was having a press escort into a haunted house, someone would have told me about it by now?”

“Oh dear.” Cinder looks thoughtful. “I _know_ someone’s talked with the city. Perhaps you should get in touch with the mayor. Don’t you have a friend who works there?”

Neo, egging Cinder on, draws her spine ramrod straight and plasters a familiar, cranky expression to her face. It’s a dead-on impression of—

“That’s right. Miss Schnee.” Cinder smirks. “Your confidantes are failing you, Yang.”

Now Yang really _is_ going to punch Cinder, to hell with Neo. The rock is crumbling beneath her feet. If what Cinder was saying was true… Yang wouldn’t just be returning to Salem Manor.

She’d be returning with _Blake._

All the careful boxes that Yang has sealed up inside herself are starting to fray open. It was already too much, knowing Ruby had mixed herself up in this behind her back. Adding _Blake Belladonna_ to the mix was enough to make Yang want to crawl into bed and not emerge until Salem Manor was demolished.

“I see I’ve given you some food for thought,” Cinder says, cutting through Yang’s worry. “I hope you’ll mull it over and see that Ruby is the _right_ choice here.”

Cinder doesn’t say goodbye. Neither does Neo. They both toss their heads and walk out as cruelly and as abruptly as they arrived.

And Yang is still left reeling. She doesn’t know what to melt down about first: Ruby, the challenge, Cinder, _Blake._

Yang’s heart aches in a way she’s sworn it had forgotten how to. There had been years and phases and strings of girls after Blake. Yang needed there to be; she’d had a life to live after all. But there was the loose thread always hanging with Blake, the first girl she’d ever fallen for before she’d even known what that could mean.

Blake was coming _here._ She hadn’t even spared Yang a phone call.

More than ever, Yang feels like she needs a drink.

\--

A universal rule of small-town bars is that if you’re born and bred, you’re going to know everyone in the room most nights. Usually, Yang loves this. She loves that she can walk in and visit Pyrrha, who works as the bar manager, or catch up with Sun while he cheats badly at pool. She enjoys the friendly sense of camaraderie, the sociability, the history. Tonight, Yang just wants to stare into space and hold a pint.

The odds are not in her favour.

“Yang!” Weiss screams it from the bar, where she’s drinking a gin martini. Her ponytail is sliding further askew on her head.

Yang looks at Pyrrha and raises her eyebrows. “Is Weiss _drunk_?”

“As a skunk!” Pyrrha says cheerfully. She casts a compassionate look towards Weiss. “I think she had a rough day at work. I’m looking out for her.”

Pyrrha is taking this in placid stride because she’s Pyrrha, but the truth is, of all the crazy things to happen to Yang today, finding Weiss drunk at ten at night in the middle of the week topped the list in an instant.

Yang takes one, long breath and sets her own gloom aside before sliding into the stool next to Weiss. “What’s going on, buddy?”

Weiss wrinkles her nose. “Buddy. I _hate_ that.” Her words are still crisp and judgmental, so she can’t be _that_ drunk. As though defying fate, Weiss holds up her hand. “Pyrrha! Two more martinis. One for me and the other for my _buddy_.” Weiss dissolves into giggles, and Yang takes back everything.

“Okay,” Pyrrha says calmly. “One more, coming up.”

“ _Two_ more.”

“One for you and one for Yang,” Pyrrha corrects herself. “Coming right up!”

“Are you sure that’s a great idea?” Yang asks quietly.

“Oh yes.” Pyrrha smiles sweetly. “I’ve been giving her martini glasses of water and olives for the last three rounds. She hasn’t noticed yet.”

Yang laughs. “Spectacular. Make mine a double, then. Put it on the Schnee tab.”

Pyrrha winks at Yang. “You got it.”

While Pyrrha busies herself with a cocktail shaker, Yang turns back to Weiss. “So, was it a very good day or a very bad day?” she asks lightly.

Weiss stirs the olive in her drink. “Can’t I just be in a mood?”

“No you cannot,” says Yang. “Because _I_ am in a mood, and there ain’t enough room in this funk for the two of us.”

“I was here first!”

“How long _have_ you been here?” Yang asks.

“She came in right after five,” Pyrrha pipes in. She sets two glasses down in front of Yang and Weiss. Weiss drains her remaining drink and slides the fresh one in front of her – and Pyrrha is right, she doesn’t make any comment about the taste.

“Damn,” Yang says, shaking her head at Weiss. “You _are_ in a mood.”

“She played Hotel California eleven times in a row on the jukebox,” Pyrrha adds, and even her infinite sweetness slips a little remembering it.

“You can check in, but you can never leave…” Weiss says dreamily. Suddenly, she lurches forward and snaps open her handbag. “Does anybody have a lien?”

Yang reaches over and gingerly takes Weiss’s purse away from her. “Maybe let’s avoid playing DJ so we can keep coming back here. Even Pyrrha has her limits.”

Weiss pouts. “You’re no fun at all.”

“Huh,” Yang says thoughtfully. “You must be drunker than I thought if you’re telling these _outrageous_ bar lies. I’m the funnest person you know.”

“Funnest.” Weiss snorts. “Most fun.” Her expression drifts, a little of the drunken mirth slips off her face. “It was a bad day,” Weiss finally, quietly admits.

“What happened?” asks Yang. She leans forward, warm sympathy feeding her motion.

“I can’t talk about it.” Weiss makes a face. “It’s classified.”

And suddenly everything about Weiss’s little bender falls into place. There are very few people who can send Weiss into a full tilt meltdown. She usually maintains so much control, even when she’s throwing a fit inside. There are even fewer people who live by a code of discretion with as much single mindedness as Weiss’s older sister.

“Did you get into it with Winter?” Yang asks. Weiss winces. Yang has hit the mark.

“ _Classified,”_ Weiss says again, with feeling.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Yang sips her martini and wrinkles her nose in distaste. Gin. Gross. Who wants to drink a Christmas tree?

“There’s something going on at work that’s… it’s bad. And Winter has given me some advice that I’m not sure I can take.”

Yang’s eyes widen. Weiss and Winter both work in politics, so she’s used to their work stories having higher stakes than her days fixing old motorcycles. Yang prefers it that way – she thinks her head would spin off if she had to navigate the social intricacies that Weiss’s career demanded. So she’s used to seeing Weiss frustrated, to seeing Weiss wound up, to see Weiss taking phone calls on trivia nights. She’s not used to seeing her so clearly lost.

“Is there anything I can do?” Yang asks. Weiss answers with a tiny shake of her head and a very long pause.

“Yang… there’s something else,” Weiss says carefully, and it must be serious, because the edge of her words have been whet sober. “I was looking at Mayor Ironwood’s schedule for tomorrow and – well – there’s a reporter coming to town—”

“Blake,” Yang says right away, and the comical levels of shock on Weiss’s face almost make her laugh, almost flood out the sharp taste left by saying Blake’s name. “You’re not the only one who had a weird day,” Yang admits.

Thoughts swirl in Yang’s head: Was Blake in town right now? Would Blake call her? She had to have known she was following Yang into Salem Manor if she was already scheduling meetings with local politicians – so why hadn’t she tried to get in touch with her? Thoughts swirl in Yang’s head: Does Blake even care?

“Yang?” Weiss carefully, very carefully, lays her hand on Yang’s arm. Her hand remains steady. “What are you thinking?”

And it’s this – the drunken, wise sympathy of Weiss Schnee – that cuts straight through Yang. She has to choke back a noise. Her head drops into her hands. “I don’t _know.”_

Weiss lightly squeezes Yang’s wrist, and Yang feels something close to tears.

“It’s just all too freaky,” Yang says, burying her demons with a casual shrug. “I feel like I’m stepping back in time.”

“Yeah.” Weiss looks thoughtful, and then maudlin, and then a little bit sleepy. “It’s got a real Tartarean punishment vibe for you.”

Weiss only slurs a little on _Tartarean,_ and normally Yang would be impressed, but she’s starting to let the impending situation of it all get to her. Yang frowns. The pounding in her heart is years away, in front of a dusty mirror – and it’s in the here and now, insistent thunder in Yang’s ears. Yang tells herself to get over it, but there’s too much to wade through, too many old wounds being dragged to the forefront. Yang wants to tell herself that she can always quit, but she knows that she can’t: There’s Ruby, waiting like an eager spring to pour in and take Yang’s place. There’s Cinder, with designs on her sister that Yang can’t even begin to parse.

Yang looks at Weiss sidelong. She wants to open up to her best friend about this, but she doesn’t even know where to start. With Cinder, this afternoon? With a slumber party, over a decade in the past?

Yang is chewing these thoughts over these thoughts for so long that Weiss’s attention starts to wander. She’s so lost in her own head that it barely registers when Weiss slides gracelessly off of her barstool and ambles away – _bathroom_ , Yang assumes.

And then she hears the opening strains of Hotel California and sees Pyrrha visibly wince.

“Woo!” Weiss pumps her fist, loses her balance, and then steadies herself on the jukebox. Her ponytail bounces as she bobs her head.

“Oh boy.” Yang tears her eyes away from Weiss to throw an apologetic glance in Pyrrha’s direction.

Pyrrha crosses her arms over her chest. “Maybe we’ll close up early tonight,” she says, her tone kind but pointed.

“I’ll get her out of here,” Yang replies apologetically. She jumps up and to Weiss’s side and pats her on the shoulder.

“You get next pick,” Weiss says, as gallant as a knight. “What’ll it be? Hotel California? Africa?”

“Pyrrha’s closing up, Weiss,” Yang says kindly.

Weiss spins on her heel, tilts up her chin, and makes a face. “But it’s still _early._ ”

“Come on.” Yang wraps her arm around Weiss’s shoulder and tries to steer her towards the exit. “I’ll give you a ride home.”

Instead of letting herself be corralled, Weiss turns in Yang’s hold and loops her arms around Yang’s neck. A cloudy, mischievous spark flickers to life on her face. “Are you trying to take me home, Yang?”

Neither the implication nor the possibility is lost on Yang. It hangs like a question, has since they were in college, but tonight, Yang is not in the mood. She gently pries Weiss loose.

“Weiss, I love you more than life, but there aren’t enough gin martinis in the world.”

Weiss falls back. She pouts. “Are you going home to moon over Blake? Give it up, Yang. She probably doesn’t even remember us.”

“ _Weiss._ ” Yang grabs Weiss by the arm and tugs her towards the door. “Now it’s _really_ time to go.”

Weiss lets herself be dragged away this time, but not before blowing a dramatic kiss towards Pyrrha, who fondly rolls her eyes.

On the road, Yang slips quietly back into brooding, lets the roar of the motorcycle drown out any further conversation with Weiss. Weiss is probably a little too drunk for Yang to be taking her home on the bike, but the lone taxi service in Patch is spotty at best, and Weiss is clinging tightly enough to Yang’s waist.

So Yang leans into the winding turns and lets herself think. Lately, Yang has too many thoughts. Lately, she doesn’t like what they have to say. So Blake Belladonna was looking for a story. So Cinder Fall was edging Ruby closer to some unknowable game. So Weiss was keeping secrets, and Ruby too, while Yang is on the subject.

So that doesn’t mean Yang has to make things easy for any of them, not the good intentions nor the bad, not the heartbreak nor the badly stoked rage. Quietly, Yang starts to form a plan. They can buy stock in her nightmares all they want – but they’ll have to catch her first.

There on the road, Weiss crooning a mumbled rendition of Hotel California into Yang’s ear, half-audible, half-mangled lyrics, Yang comes to a decision: She’s going into Salem Manor tomorrow night.

\--

Coming at it from a different angle, it’s the house that has been waiting for them to approach. Yang thinks it looks something like sentient, doorway ready to creak open and stretch inward, bottomless and black like a maw.

Coming at it from Yang’s perspective, the makeup of this night was inevitable. She looks sidelong at Ruby, Weiss, and Blake. To her, none of them feel linked in solidarity. They are still standing arm in arm in arm in arm, but all Yang can see are secrets and walls.

Yang is varying degrees of irritated with all three of them, and still – she can’t help but notice how _good_ Blake looks. Of course Yang had known that Blake grew up hot – wistful Instagram stalking is a two way street. Of course Yang remembers how sexy Blake had sounded on the phone – the thrill of her voice had been almost enough to cut through Blake’s own awkwardness, through the anger that had had twenty-four hours to stew inside Yang. It had been enough to make Yang’s knees buckle, but that is a secret she will be taking to the grave.

Still, it has nothing on the full effect: Of Blake’s golden eyes rimmed in kohl, of her short hair gleaming in the moonlight, the tendrils that curl around her neck like an invitation; of the curve of her hips and her ass in those tight black jeans, or the tilt of her head that Yang is sure must still be filled with a hundred sly, witty comments. The full effect: Is enough to knock Yang off her feet

It’s _not_ enough to make her forget that she needs to draft a stern lecture for Ruby as soon as possible. What was she thinking? Suddenly Ruby’s lightened mood over the last few days makes sense. She had given up on fighting and opted for a new surprise tactic. Well, Yang had to hand it to Ruby: She was surprised, and Ruby was walking through the gate. Her sister was could be downright devious when she was single minded about something.

They crunch over old leaves, past the gate, up the long, tree shrouded drive. Salem Manor looms before them, a bigger problem with every step. Yang’s thoughts move from Ruby to Weiss. She wonders if Weiss’s _Cheers_ routine last night and her new gig moonlighting as Ruby’s partner-in-crime are connected. More secrets are building, and Yang’s gut turns unhappily. She hates not knowing what is going on.

The road can only go so far and eventually, Yang, Blake, Ruby and Weiss reach the front door. Automatically, Yang and Blake’s eyes meet. Yang feels a multilayered jolt of emotion skip through her. For a moment, they’re both twelve years old again, and all Yang wants to do is impress Blake Belladonna, the coolest girl in school.

Then Blake tilts her head, squinting at the space above the door, and the moment shatters.

“You’d think there would be cameras here,” Blake murmurs.

Yang is suddenly annoyed -- and since she can’t quite explain why, she lashes out, leaning towards snide when she says, “Sorry you’ll miss out on your close up.”

Blake look startled, and her eyes widen a fraction in genuine hurt that’s like a jagged knife to Yang’s heart. She quickly caulks it over, but something about Blake makes Yang want to splay herself open like they never spent any time apart at all.

“I just mean – with all the press the haunted mansion story has been getting,” Blake says. “You think there would be some sort of coverage. From the mayor, or even from the media. With all the social media buzz, you think they’d want—”

“What? A jumpscare fancam?”

Blake shrugs. “Well, yeah.”

The irritation builds in Yang. Here Blake is, thinking about _work._ Yang has been so busy tending to her own heart that a part of her had been sure Blake must have been doing the same, feeling out this ancient and curious energy building between them. Even wondering, tentatively, if this was something they might talk about tonight. It’s not that crazy – Yang had seen the way Blake had looked at her when she stepped out of the shadows and up the hill. It’s not _that_ crazy – this is something of a reunion, after all.

Yang opens her mouth to retort rudely, but Ruby cuts her off quickly. “Let’s just go inside,” she says, the steel shining through the deceptive sweetness of her voice. “Blake, you can take video on your scroll if you need it for your story.”

It’s so not the point, but it shuts them both up. Satisfied, Ruby turns away and opens the front door. It swings open with a heavy, ominous creak that makes the hair on Yang’s arms prickle.

Yang raises her eyebrows at Ruby. “After you, sis.”

Ruby makes a face – Yang never calls her _sis_ unless she is being deliberately obnoxious. She turns away and looks into the dark foyer of Salem Manor. For all of her insistence on tagging along, she looks a little bit nervous.

“Having second thoughts?” asks Yang. _Please say yes._

The line of Ruby’s shoulders hardens, and she lifts her chin. “Nope.”

Without a second glance back, Ruby steps over the threshold and heads inside.

Weiss follows, looking exasperated with all of them. Blake and Yang exchange an uneasy glance and bring up the rear. Yang lets the door slam shut behind her, and Weiss jumps at the heavy bang when it closes.

Inside it’s dark, and Yang, Ruby, and Weiss all automatically whip out their scrolls and start shining their flashlights around. Blake follows suit a half step behind, and Yang remembers that she can see just fine in the dark. Unbidden, the memory of Blake playfully teasing her about her eyesight during their first night here rises to the top of Yang’s thoughts. She shoves it away and squints into the gloom.

“Gods, this place is a dump,” Weiss mutters, swinging her scroll’s light towards the rickety stairs. “The lengths Ironwood is going to keep it…”

Weiss trails off, but not before Yang notices the quick, pointed look that Ruby shoots her way. More secrets, or just offshoots of the same? Yang is already so tired, and the night has only just begun.

“Well.” Weiss turns to the group and smiles, but Yang thinks even Blake can tell that it’s only for show. “Aside from about a billion building code violations, I don’t see anything that would strike true fear in anybody’s heart,” Weiss continues. “Maybe this won’t be so bad after all.”

Right on cue, an eerie, warbling howl rolls through the room. Ruby stifles a squeak. Yang’s heart leaps dangerously. Blake stiffens, her eyes glowing and darting around the room.

Weiss continues to look nonplussed. “That was just the wind,” she says pragmatically. “Don’t be so dramatic.”

“That’s _exactly_ what the person who is about to die in the horror movie would say,” says Yang.

“Maybe we should split up,” Ruby says thoughtfully. “We could cover more ground, get the lay of the house, and then regroup.”

“Right after that,” says Yang. “You two aren’t even _trying_ for final girl material.”

“You _know_ I don’t know what that means,” Weiss snaps.

“But you should. You should know what it—”

“Nobody is splitting up.” Blake’s voice is low, commanding. Everybody shuts up. Carefully, she looks from Yang, to Ruby, and finally Weiss. “You may not believe it, but this place is evil. This house is evil. We stick together, and we make it through the night.”

Yang feels a chill crawl up her spine. Ruby and Weiss’s expressions sober. Blake’s words hang heavy in the air. For a long moment, nobody speaks. The air feels suddenly heavy, sickly. It should feel melodramatic. Maybe it does, to Ruby and Weiss. But for Yang, all of her memories of this place are rushing towards a pinprick. The ring. The woman in the mirror. The breathless, terrified hours pressed close to Blake in the hall closet. So many memories, so many fears – all pushed down deep and wrapped in sunshine for many years. Until tonight.

“Fine,” says Ruby. “We won’t split up. But I still think we should look around. If this place is… if there’s trouble, shouldn’t we try our best to know what’s coming?”

“We’ve seen some of it,” Blake points out.

“ _We_ haven’t,” Ruby gestures emphatically towards herself and Weiss. “Why don’t we start with what you two remember. Were there any specific rooms where paranormal events happened?”

Something about the brisk, studied way that Ruby speaks sets Yang on edge, but she cannot quite place why. Instead she says, begrudgingly, “We could go to the parlor. Where that big mirror was.”

Blake looks relieved. She rubs at the scar around her ring finger, absently, like it’s an automatic gesture. Yang feels her chest fill. Had Blake been worried that Yang would retrace their steps, return to the bedroom? She never should have let her put on that ring.

“Great. Which way?” Ruby continues to speak calmly, using her mediator voice.

Yang tries not to roll her eyes. “That way,” she mutters, pointing begrudgingly.

Obediently, everybody starts to troop towards the parlor, going slowly, inspecting the walls. Yang snags Ruby, hooking her by the hood of her sweater, and holds her back half a step.

“What is it?” Ruby asks, sounding annoyed.

“What’s going on with you?” Yang asks plainly. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” Ruby says quickly, too quickly.

Yang’s eyes narrow. “You sure about that? You’ve been twitchy and weird about this house from the start.”

“ _I’m_ twitchy and weird?” Ruby asks snidely. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

“And now you’re being mean,” Yang adds. “You’re never mean.”

It’s true: Even when she’s giving terrible advice, even when it comes at the cost of shoving her own feelings somewhere irretrievable, Ruby is never cruel. So what exactly is Yang still missing here?

“I…” Guilt flashes behind Ruby’s eyes. She sighs. “I really wish you would have let me do this on my own, Yang.”

Without another word, Ruby brushes by Yang and down the hall in a nervous burst of speed. Yang is about to dash after her when she feels a hand on her shoulder holding her back. She looks; it’s Blake.

“Let her go,” Blake says quietly.

Yang shrugs off Blake’s touch; even through her leather jacket, Yang’s skin burns where Blake’s fingertips lay. Fiery emotion rises up in Yang, and she spits, “What do you know about it?”

Blake looks taken aback. As before, the surprise of this softens something in Yang. They’re still so out of step with each other, and that’s frustrating for Yang. For the first time, she starts to wonder if all the anger she’s been feeling comes from somewhere else, someplace tender and misfiled. Blake churns up so many emotions in Yang just by _existing_ , and she doesn’t know what to do with any of it.

“I’m sorry—” Yang starts to say.

“I didn’t mean to—” Blake begins at the same time.

They both stop abruptly, and then break into nervous giggles. It cracks some of the glass tension, spiderwebs across the ice. “You go first,” Yang says when the laughter subsides.

Blake smiles at the tentative peace offering. “I was going to say I didn’t mean to imply that I like, know what your sister needs better than you do or anything. I know I don’t…” Blake trails off, and her voice cracks, and Yang’s heart goes out to her.

“I know you didn’t,” Yang replies. She’s trying to soften her tone, but her words come out clumsy and gruff. “But Blake, with you and me—”

“I know. It’s still weird.” Blake takes a deep breath. “I keep thinking if I act like nothing is wrong, we can pretend like all of this is normal, but it’s not, is it?”

Yang doesn’t say anything. She crosses her arms over her chest and shoots Blake a very dry look.

Blake’s smile is rueful and self-effacing. “I know, I know. Denial’s not just a river. But don’t you think…”

“What?”

“This all still feels so familiar. That has to count for something, right?”

It’s so close to what Yang has been thinking. Does it count for anything? Can they really just step back in time, comb out a do over? A part of Yang wants to, badly – but they’ve lived entire lives now, and it’s not that easy to ignore.

“Let’s just get through the night,” Yang says. She keeps walking.

Walking down the long hallway to the parlour is like gliding through an old dream, half-forgotten but echoing discord. Yang wants to trail her fingers through the dust, count the squares where there were once pictures on the wall. Why were there no more pictures on the wall? So much of Salem Manor has been left in abandoned squalor – the furniture, the mirrors, the drapes. It’s hazy in her memory, but Yang recalls the bedroom feeling like an untouched mausoleum. But there were no pictures on the walls, no books, no knickknacks swept into lost corners – victims of specialized looting, or something more? Was there someone out there invested in keeping the ghost of Salem Manor faceless?

Yang’s mulling it over when the hallway opens up into the wide parlour and she steps inside, Blake cautiously at her heels. Automatically Yang’s attention is pulled towards the mirror, but it hangs harmlessly, no ghouls in sight. She sees the flick of Weiss’s platinum hair in the mirror and follows the line from the reflection to the source.

Weiss stands near the mirror with Ruby. Their heads are bent close together, and they are whispering furiously back and forth. They haven’t noticed Yang yet, and she raises her arm to hold Blake back, strains her ears to try and catch a sentence or a phrase.

“ _You need to—”_

_“—tell her—”_

_“—had to go through freaking_ microfiche—”

It’s no use. Yang can’t hear much, and she sighs, loud enough to Ruby and Weiss look up in alarm and spring apart. They both glance shiftily around the room. Yang only stares, waiting for one of them to talk. It’s such an obvious set-up that Yang is sure one of them will break fast.

“Not much here,” Ruby says instead. “You sure this is the right spot?”

Yang feels the kind of angry rush from Ruby’s needling that only a little sister can provide. Was Ruby really going to pretend like the conversation Yang had walked in on didn’t look shady as hell? Was she really going to do it by implying that Yang might have been talking up the haunting after all these years? Yang wants to do something dramatic, like hang Ruby upside down by her ankles and shake her until all the loose change and secrets fall out of her pockets.

Since she can’t get away with any of the above, and Ruby is stubborn enough that she probably still wouldn’t talk after that, Yang zeroes in on Weiss. Weiss avoids her eyes. Yang frowns.

“We spent most of our time upstairs,” Yang tells Ruby, though her puzzled expression remains on Weiss. “There was more stuff up there. Junk drawers and stuff.”

“Let’s look around here first,” Blake says quickly. Is it Yang’s imagination, or is her voice pitched higher than usual?

Ruby shrugs. “If you want,” she says casually, but Yang sees her eyes quickly dart towards the stairs. She’s practically bouncing on the balls of her feet, and Yang wonders if she is chafing at the bit of her don’t-split-up rule.

Blake notices it too. She crosses the room to Ruby, gently nudges her towards the far side of the room. “There’s a utility closet over here,” she tells Ruby. “Maybe there’s something for you to poke through there.

Yang’s throat constricts when Blake mentions the closet so casually, but she shoves the emotion aside. This is an opportunity. While Blake has Ruby’s attention, Yang corners Weiss.

“Weiss, what was that about?” Yang asks bluntly.

Weiss puts on her best _who, me?_ expression, which frankly isn’t very good under the best of circumstances. “Whatever do you mean?” she asks politely.

“ _Weiss._ ” Pure exasperation leaks into Yang’s tone. “Look, if you’re not gonna tell me, I’m going to have to assume you and Ruby are having some sort of torrid affair.

“As _if!_ ” Weiss looks aghast. “You know she eats cookies in bed, right?”

“How do _you_ know she eats cookies in bed?” Yang asks pointedly.

Weiss all but shudders. Some of the careful blankness leaches out of her blue eyes though, and she bites her lip. “Yang, I’m really sorry, but it’s not for me to say.”

“Does it have anything to do with what was up with you last night?”

“It… not exactly.” Weiss continues to look troubled. “Some of it, I guess.”

“Then just tell me those parts,” Yang goads. “Please Weiss, I feel like I’m going crazy here.”

Weiss fidgets unhappily. “I—”

“ _Bo-ring._ ” Ruby flounces out of the closet with Blake. “Come on. There’s nothing here. Let’s go upstairs!”

Weiss clams up again. Yang can practically see the door of her face slam shut. She tries not to groan out loud and turns towards Ruby and Blake.

“Upstairs, huh?” Yang glances towards Blake. “What do you think?”

Blake shrugs. “We have to get there eventually.”

She’s right, but neither of them want to hear it. Not that the parlour is much better but – at least they were already there now. At least they were seeing calm blank spaces with their own eyes and letting it draw away their fear.

Yang is perfectly willing to drag her heels in a little – until they all hear the second moan.

It rolls through the room, unearthly and obstructive, and Yang’s heart leaps into her throat. Everyone looks at each other, wild eyed, new fears making the air quiver.

“Just the wind,” Weiss says again. She doesn’t sound as convinced this time.

Weiss’s words are punctuated by a _screech_ that causes all four of them to jump. A nervous squeak escapes Ruby. Adrenaline is starting to stir in Yang. Her hackles are starting to rise. She looks at the mirror again, careful and determined and afraid. Yang approaches the mirror, and to her surprise she feels Blake by her side.

“The last time…” Yang murmurs.

“I know.” Blake isn’t looking at Yang; she’s studying their reflections in the mirror. She’s looking for a glimpse of the woman behind the veil.

Yang follows suit, though she’s not sure what to expect. Right now, it is only a mirror, as innocuous and still as a quiet pond on the forest. There are ripples beneath the surface, nut they’re only given form in Yang’s mind. She can’t _see_ the woman but she can remember her; the stringy grey of her hair and her limbs, the howl that had filled Yang’s own lungs.

Without thinking, Yang raises her arm. Slowly, very slowly, she touches her fingertips to the glass surface of the mirror.

It’s _warm._

Before Yang has the chance to let the horrible implications of this set in – the mirror lets off a blinding flash, the rectangular shutter of a camera magnified. Yang yanks her hand back and shields her eyes and whips around to face Ruby and Weiss. Both of their faces have blanched; Weiss grips her ponytail in both hands like she’s about to start nervously wringing it.

Stupidly, Yang asks, “Did you guys just see—”

She’s cut off when a high pitched squeal of static fills the room. Yang looks at Blake again, wide eyed; Blake is staring at the walls.

“What do you see?” Yang asks quietly.

Eyes still fixed on the wall, Blake looks disturbed. “Are the walls… moving?” she asks.

Even now, Yang is incredulous – but she inches forward to take a closer look. Sure enough, the walls are pulsing, as though taking steady, shallow breaths.

Yang gasps and steps backwards in horror. She can’t stop looking at the walls now, fixated on the sickly thrum of them.

“Upstairs,” Yang says. Her words come out strangled. “Now. We are getting out of this room.”

Nobody puts up a fight. Yang, Blake, Weiss, and Ruby pile out of the room in a tumble, and the prickle on the back of Yang’s neck doesn’t recede until they’re all huddled on the landing midway up the grand staircase of the house.

“Did you see _that_ before?” Ruby asks. She sounds small and scared now, whatever emotions had been driving her earlier now held at bay by fear.

“No,” says Yang. “That was new.”

“We don’t know that,” Blake replies. “Maybe when we were hiding…”

A part of Yang is annoyed that her middle school tale of heroism is unravelling before her very eyes, but it’s a very small part of her, drowned in the quickly rising tide of her fear. Yang thinks back. Had there been anything weird with the walls the last time? All Yang can remember is shaking. All Yang can remember is Blake in her arms.

“Maybe,” Yang admits. Her voice sounds like sandpaper, her throat is so dry. She swallows, but it doesn’t help much.

“Surely there’s an explanation,” says Weiss, clinging to logic because it’s all that she has. “Old wiring, or—or—”

Yang’s laughter is a raspy bark. “Sure, Weiss. And the rest of it was just the wind.”

Weiss scowls, looking petulant. “We don’t _know—_ ”

Weiss is cut off by more untethered screeching. Ruby covers her ears. Blake’s eyes glow, wide and frightened. Yang swears she can feel the floorboards start to shake underneath her feet. Yang opens her mouth to comment on this—

\--and then another blinding flash of light envelops the room. It strobes crazily, and the howls and screeches join it. The cacophony stretches on and on until Yang feels disoriented and half crazy. A little part of her asks how there is electricity running through this house, but it’s drowned out by sound and light and Yang’s own scrambled senses.

When it abruptly stops, Yang feels dizzy and ill. Ruby is hunched over and covering her ears again.

“Just the wind, right Weiss?” Yang asks dryly.

Blake covers her mouth and giggles, gallows humour if Yang has ever seen it. And Weiss—

Yang turns in a full circle, searching stupidly despite there barely being room for the three of them to crowd together on the landing. Three? No, that wasn’t right. There was supposed to be four of them. There was supposed to be…

“Um, guys?” Yang asks nervously. “Where’s Weiss?”

Now Ruby and Blake are looking around too, regaining their bearings, calling out Weiss’s name. It doesn’t take long for them all to reach the same conclusion.

Weiss is missing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh it has been awhile but please enjoy this bonkers long chapter! love you guys 💕✌️
> 
> (if you are wondering why i, known freezerburn stan, would shut them down like this in my own bar........ i licherally lost a bet to [explosivesky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosivesky/pseuds/explosivesky))

**Author's Note:**

> i told my horror junkie best friend the plot to this fic and she was like "that is the premise of the 1959 vincent price classic the house on haunted hill" so i guess i'll have to watch it and maybe report back in the tags <3


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